Blood Relative

by James Swallow

  Seamlessly, he turned the pivot toward the first Soldat into a spin kick, his leg coming up to strike the next clone soldier in the gut, staggering him backwards. The third Soldat grabbed at him as he passed, missing the chance to pull him into a bear hug. Experience and speed were paying dividends against the brute force of the G-Soldats, but the fourth had held back a moment to gauge his enemy.

  It now lunged with the rod-like stunner, hot sparks spitting from the tip. They wanted to take the GI alive. Rogue saw the blow coming, telegraphed by the bunching of the Nort's muscles under his webbing vest. He tried to step sideways, but his opponent feinted, then slammed the stunner into his chest.

  Rogue yelled as a burst of high voltage tore into him and by reflex he brought Gunnar up in an arc. The biochip in the rifle unloaded a point-blank shot into the Soldat's torso, punching a huge burst of superheated flesh from its back. The corpse of the Nort GI dropped away, but Rogue stumbled, the effect of the stun bolt screaming in his ears.

  The Soldat with the broken neck was still in the fight and from its fallen position, it snagged Rogue's ankle and pulled. The GI, already off-balance, dropped to his knees.

  Automatically, Rogue forced himself up from the dull, glassine earth, but two electro-stunners were there to meet him, and they fell in a rain of punches and blows, flaring blue lightning numbing nerves and propelling him towards the blackness of unconsciousness.

  Against one NexGen G-Soldat, Rogue would win; the odds lengthened with two, but his superlative skills gave him an edge over the vat-grown Nort clones; but three... Three would tip the balance. Three, four even, and the Rogue Trooper would not survive.

  Someone shouted his name from very far away. It sounded like a ghost out there, a ghost from a place made of glass and razors, a place deep down in the core of his memories.

  NINE

  DOMAIN DELTA

  Pain brought Rogue back from the blood-warm darkness, dragging him up from the depths of unconsciousness like a hook to his heart. The GI's head lolled backwards and forwards as a fierce windstorm tore over his bare skin, the rough abrasive fines of the atmosphere burning with friction. He tried to open his eyes; one was swollen shut.

  His body was a map of agony, islands of bruising across his chest and torso tightening the plastiflesh into knots. His arms were above his head, the wrists secured together in manacles, his entire weight hanging on them. Rogue tried to focus. There was nothing beneath his feet but a blurry carpet of shiny grey, shifting and moving. He looked up, ignoring the pain from the bones in his neck and saw where the manacles were strapped to cables trailing off the side of a bullet-shaped hopper. With a sudden lurch of understanding, Rogue realised where he was.

  The Norts had captured him, Ferris and the other Southers, and hung them like the corpses of hunted animals from the skids of the flyer. The hopper was moving quickly, the wind buffeting and turning the prisoners as it flew on. Rogue glimpsed Ferris's limp body flapping like a loose flag from the opposite skid; he couldn't tell if the pilot was alive or dead.

  The razor-edged wind changed direction as the Nort ship turned and Rogue's head bounced off the landing ski. He was without his gear, Gunnar, Bagman and Helm either destroyed or secured somewhere inside the flyer. The latter was more likely, he decided; if the Norts had gone to all the trouble of taking him intact, they would want the biochips of his fellow GIs and the storehouse of special technology his war gear represented.

  Rogue gave his knees an experimental flex and was rewarded by fresh jolts of pain from his joints. He let out a bark of annoyance and the wind tore it from his lips. A plan was forming in his mind, something desperate and daring.

  The landscape below him was changing; the flat glass expanse of the Quartz Zone proper was thinning out and beneath his feet Rogue saw a wide natural arena marred by old bomb craters, the wrecks of meks and scar-lines of trenches. The formations of the decrepit barricades and broken pieces of cover seemed uncoordinated, built without any single defensive purpose - but then it came to him. He was looking at a firing range, or some sort of training ground, not an actual fortification.

  The real thing emerged from the low mists beyond the open canyon. Camouflaged in the same drab shade of old, burnt bone as the Quartz Zone itself, the dome rose like a shallow mountain. Rogue remembered the Nort prison camp Glasshouse-G; this was a similar construction, a huge sealed bubble of thick armourplas fortified with spars of steel. Rings of automatic guns and manned missile pods girdled the hemisphere, open muzzles turned to the sky. There were smaller satellite bubbles arranged around the perimeter and one face presented a flat ferrocrete landing dock with hopper pads and gunships on launch cradles. A low-visibility grey-on-grey version of the Nordland Forces emblem dominated one face of the dome, next to a thick black triangle that designated the building's identity; the Greek symbol for delta.

  The GI grimaced; this wasn't how he'd wanted to arrive at the Nort bio-lab. He flicked a glance at the ground below. How high were they? Above tree top level, perhaps a couple of hundred metres - certainly nowhere near a survivable fall, even for him. Rogue exercised the muscles in his arms and made ready, and when the flyer changed tack again, he used the gusts of wind to help him.

  With a flick of his legs, Rogue swung his weight back then forward in a snapping movement. With a speed and grace that belied his broad form, the GI reversed his position and wrapped his ankles around the undercarriage of the hopper. Only a simple latch secured the manacles around his wrists and after a hard twist they came free. With his hands still pressed together, Rogue's options were limited, but he had never let that stop him before. He pulled himself up onto the skid and caught sight of sudden movement through the hopper's vu-port - the Norts inside had seen him and they knew what he was going to do.

  He had seconds; the hopper dipped sharply toward the pads, desperate to make a landing before Rogue could reach the cockpit. The GI scrambled across the hull and slammed his hands, manacles and all, down on the canopy. The impact cracked the plastic and inside the Nort pilot reacted with sudden violence. Stamping down on the rudder, the pilot made the hopper tilt wildly to one side and Rogue felt his balance flee. He lost his grip on the hopper's fuselage and there was a sudden, stomach-churning moment of freefall. He dropped away from the ugly little aircraft, spinning and turning with an automatic feline grace.

  Rogue fell to the landing pad and hit hard, the shock making his feet skip off the ferrocrete, throwing him to the ground. Every instinct in him screamed to get back up, to run or fight, but the concussion echoed through his bones, hobbling him. He forced himself to a slump-shouldered stance as the hopper landed close by. Norts boiled out of an airlock, rifles at the ready. With angry acceptance, Rogue realised that at least for now, there was nowhere he could run to.

  A figure in a Nort Kolonel's chem-suit - a woman judging by the kinetics of her stride - emerged from the knot of soldiers and studied him carefully. Rogue could only see the blank eyes through the goggles of the Nort suit and the predatory glimmer in them made his innate danger sense ring like a struck bell. Even though he was under the muzzles of dozens of enemy guns, Rogue knew instantly that she was the most serious threat on the pad. He recognised distinctive rank flashes on her epaulettes, the snarling winged snake of the Nordland Special Medical Korps.

  "Even on your enemy's doorstep you attempt escape. Always the soldier," said Schrader, unable to take her eyes off the GI. "I expected nothing less."

  Favouring his bruised side, Rogue at last drew himself to his full height. "Glad I didn't disappoint you."

  "Bio-subject GI: 3627218/R2," she said, using Rogue's batch code identity number. There was a smile in her voice. "Welcome to Domain Delta. I have waited so long to meet you."

  On the pad, the G-Soldats unhooked the rest of the prisoners and dragged them into a ragged line. Rogue saw Ferris stumble, but keep his balance. For now, at least, the civilian was still breathing. Volks approached with the hopper pilot and a line trooper at his side. />
  "Your report, Kapten Volks?" she demanded.

  Volks gestured at the GI. "Success, as you can see, Kolonel-Doktor Schrader. We lost a number of men and a single G-Soldat unit."

  "That was to be expected," the woman said with a nod. "Have the corpse taken to Lab Six for organ harvest." She looked at the pilot. "You. Explain what you were doing just before you landed."

  The Nort pilot hesitated; he hadn't expected to be addressed. "Uh, Kolonel-Doktor, I was just... uh... That is, I was attempting to defend the hopper from the GI-"

  Schrader silenced him with a dismissive wave. "You understand the worth of this prisoner, yes?" She pointed at Rogue. "His value to me greatly exceeds yours, or your aircraft. You could have killed him."

  "Kolonel Schrader, I-" the pilot turned to indicate the hopper so he did not see the shot that ended his life, as Schrader drew her pistol and put a round through the back of his skull.

  "I will have discipline from my subordinates," she said, in a flat voice that carried across the landing pad. "My tolerance of incompetence only stretches so far."

  Rogue watched the events unfold, his expression neutral even as he took in every motion and impression from the Norts around him. The woman looked at him again and the GI heard Zero's words ringing in his mind. "You have to stop her..." In that moment, he had absolutely no doubt that Schrader was who his dead comrade had been describing.

  "Process the prisoners," she was saying, "and take Rogue to holding room three. Have someone clean up that mess." Schrader turned and walked back to the airlock.

  Volks gave the GI a hard shove and brandished his pistol in Rogue's face, irritation flaring in his voice. "Move it, blue-skin."

  Rogue saw an opening and decided to probe it. "Easy there, Norty. You heard her, the kolonel won't like it if I get damaged..."

  "Move!" Volks snarled. "I won't tell you again!"

  There was an undercurrent of tension between the kapten and the kolonel; it was clear as day to Rogue's keen eye. He had been trained to watch for weaknesses in the enemy, equally able to spot a deficient piece of plating on an armoured vehicle as he was to see a psychological flaw in a human being. The GI filed this piece of information away, keeping it safe for the moment when he would be able to exploit it.

  He saw Ferris and the other Southers vanish through a broad loading hatch in the deck and with them, a cargo lifter carrying a dead Soldat and Rogue's GI equipment. Volks forced him through a different airlock and into the depths of the bubble dome.

  The floor of the steri-shower was cold under Ferris's bare feet and he hugged himself to keep warm. The Norts stripped them all at gun point, bundling their chem-suits into a pile and feeding their fatigue undergarments through a vat of de-chem solution; from there they were shoved into an ultraviolet chamber that blasted them with a flash of radiation. Ferris covered his face with his hands, but the blurry after-light still dazzled his vision. Everyone stood shivering and red raw, as if they'd been frost-bitten.

  Ferris choked out a cough and glanced at Purcell. She saw him looking and turned to face him full on. "Take a good look, flyboy. This is the last piece of ass any of you dinks is going to see."

  He ignored the comment. "Ruiz is hurt."

  Purcell took the soldier's arm, examining the laser wound. The shot had cauterised the injury, but the flesh was still swollen and livid with colour. "You need a medi-pack on this, pal," she said.

  "Yeah," Ruiz bit out the words though chattering teeth. "I'll ask Norty for one along with the wine list and a silk cushion for your fat ass."

  "Quiet!" snapped a guard through a grille on the wall. "No talking!"

  Purcell was going to add something sarcastic, but a jet of acrid water blasted them from the nozzles set in the walls of the decontamination shower. Ferris stumbled and almost fell over under the punishing deluge.

  After several seconds, the chamber door opened. "Out!" ordered the Nort. "Get dressed!"

  They did as they were told, each of them silent and sullen, the dehumanising effect of the cleansing regimen beating down their spirits. More guards were waiting for them, bored looking men with the tattoos and top-knots of the Nordland infantry cadres. The largest of them, a Nort with a face like a clenched fist, gave Purcell an appraising look. "Plenty of meat on this one."

  "Skev you, needle dick," she replied with a snort.

  The Nort laughed off the insult. "Always the same with you Suds, all full of yourselves when you come through the gate." He smiled, and it was an ugly sight. "Just wait a while and you'll change your mind. Once you see what the ice queen's got planned for you, you'll beg to be my little doggie." The soldiers marched them down into the dome, through ranks of cage-like cells. "She likes to have live ones, dak?" said the guard in a languid voice. "Tries out her new toxins on you." He shook his head in mock concern. "It's a very poor way to die."

  "I'm a civilian!" Ferris blurted out, his nerve breaking. "You can't do this to me, it's against the War Compact!"

  Zeke gave him a hard look. "You ain't got no rights here, kid," he said grimly. "None of us have."

  The holding chamber resembled a cross between an interrogation cell and a medical examination room, with a table and chairs mounted on retractable rods and a spidery device in the ceiling that concealed arms ending in probes and las-scalpels. A cluster of sensors above the door tracked Rogue's movement as he examined the perimeter of the room, looking for anything that might be useful as an escape tool. Schrader had obviously prepared Volks for him. On the way in, the kapten covered the GI's head with a hood that masked all sound and vision, leaving Rogue with only his sense of direction to map the route that had taken him from the airlock to the room. If the opportunity arose, he would be able to flawlessly back-track, but he doubted that the kolonel would allow him the chance - not after his failed attempt to flee on the landing pad. The GI contented himself by shifting to a passive mode; he was gathering information with every passing second, assembling it into a framework that he could manipulate.

  In fact, escape was a secondary consideration to him now; the Genetic Infantryman was exactly where he wanted to be, deep in the heart of Domain Delta. It was only the manner of his arrival that was problematic. His circuit of the room complete, he considered the spider-mek in the ceiling; any one of its limbs might serve him well as a makeshift weapon, but that was a card he didn't want to play just yet. He sat and waited. The next move was Schrader's.

  She did not disappoint; little time passed before the woman entered the room with Volks and a hovering orb-drone.

  The robot drifted toward him and Rogue eyed the fan of needles in the machine's manipulators.

  "I'm not going to torture you," Schrader said, anticipating his thoughts. She gave a mirthless smile and sat opposite him. "The droid will give you something for your injuries."

  "I'll heal just fine on my own," said Rogue.

  "I insist." Her smile froze and Volks let his hand drop to the gun in his hip holster.

  The GI said nothing and let the robot do its job; with quick, insectile movements, it shot a stimulant-biotic cocktail into his bloodstream and then applied a salve to his swollen eye. It didn't escape Rogue's notice that the machine also took a blood sample and a skin scraping. Once it was finished, the drone floated away and out of the door.

  "Now then," Schrader began, "here we are." Her scrutiny made Rogue feel like something on a microscope slide. "I'm very pleased to finally meet you, Trooper. I've studied your career with great interest." She produced a sheaf of digi-pads and document files. Rogue saw indistinct reproductions of Souther paperwork among them, no doubt the copies made by some backroom spy concealed in Milli-Com. "I'm going to enjoy working with you."

  He nodded at the papers. "Would you like an autograph?"

  The woman's face twitched in a poor approximation of a smirk which spoke volumes to Rogue. Schrader was someone to whom emotion was a dislocated concept, a cold personality that exhibited responses only because it was expected of her. He
glanced at Volks, wondering about their relationship.

  "How about you?" Rogue addressed the officer. "Are you a fan of mine as well?" He nodded in the direction of Volks's rank tabs. "Kashar Legion, right? Maybe we met before, out in the Zone?"

  "Speak to me, not to him!" Schrader snapped, and Rogue smiled inwardly. Good, a flash of the Kolonel-Doktor's real self. Obviously, there were some things that would get a rise from her. Schrader's voice returned to a conversational tone once more. "We have to discuss your future, Rogue."

  He flexed his hands absently in the cuffs around his wrists. "Becoming one of your lab rats isn't on my agenda, Schrader. I know what you're doing here."

  She shook her head. "I don't think you do, but don't worry, I'll tell you all you want to know in good time. No, I have an offer for you, Rogue. An opportunity."

  "And what would that be?"

  Schrader leaned a little closer. "Help me end the war, Rogue. Once and for all."

  The GI's face twisted in a sneer. "I'll die before I see a Nort flag rise over this planet."

  "Nort, Souther..." she shook her head. "I don't care about nations! Just lines on a map, names for fools who send others to their deaths. I said 'end the war', Rogue, not win it. Neither side deserves to take Nu Earth for themselves, they've done nothing but squander life and turn this world into a charnel house. The time has come for a new order to be created."

  "With you in charge?"

  Schrader's gaze was hard and intense. "I am the visionary, Rogue, but you..." She reached out a hand and touched him. "You are the catalyst."