Blood Relative (20 page)

"Are you insane?" Ferris barked. "Who knows what kind of twisted skev that mad bitch is doing down there?"

The lift doors opened. "You coming?" Rogue asked. "It's your choice, but I figure you have a better chance staying alive if we stick together."

Ferris's frenzied manner ebbed away as the cold, hard logic of the GI's words hit home. The pilot knew that his life expectancy would be measured in minutes the moment he parted company with the trooper. "Ah, skev me," he grated with heavy finality, and he followed Rogue into the lift.

They descended as low as the dead guard's clearance would take them and Rogue frowned when the elevator stopped several floors above the main sub-levels. They emerged into an enclosed glass corridor that split off into numerous work rooms and lab compartments. Many were sealed tight with biohazard airlocks and las-cage security barriers barred others. Like much of the base, the sub-level was on a night time mode with subdued lights and a minimum of activity. No humans were visible, but several varieties of auto-tek droids were working in a precise robotic silence.

"What are we looking for?" Ferris whispered.

"I'll know it when I see it," replied Rogue, moving quickly from door to door, peering through the armoured glass walls. In some of the chambers there were thick glass tubes swimming with oily fluids and inside them the shapes of human-like things, green-hued flesh growing from tiny foetal clusters of skin and bone.

"Schrader's got a whole clone farm down here..." The pilot gave a low whistle.

"That's not all." Rogue tapped on a window. In another chamber there were caskets wreathed in white wisps of cryogenic gas and through their frozen lids the GI could see the bodies of dead prisoners, many of them sporting distorted and discoloured flesh. Portions of necrotised skin coloured blue-green by some sort of viral infection were being carefully dissected by the scientist's tireless droids. Ferris thought he caught a glimpse of a familiar face in one of the tubes - a prisoner he'd seen in the exercise yard on the day they'd arrived. He recalled the man being dragged away by the Norts; now his fate was clear.

"In here." Rogue ordered and Ferris followed him into a chamber where a large console faced a series of circular depressions on the floor. One of the hatches was open and extending up from below was a slender tank filled with preservative fluid. A maintenance drone was at work on the device, ignorant of their presence. Rogue worked the console, bringing screens to life. "Looks like storage."

"For what?" A central display screen illuminated and pages of text scrolled across it, too fast for Ferris's eyes to follow. "Can you read that?"

The GI nodded. "These are files from Milli-Com's Bio-Division. Records copied from the Genetic Infantry programme." Rogue recognised the ident tag keyed to the file; it bore the Buzzard code name. "That worthless traitor... Even before he set us up, he was feeding the Norts everything he could on the development of the GIs."

Ferris watched him work, noticing the tension in Rogue increase. "Makes sense. The Norts steal the bio-tech, make their own clones and have the traitor wipe out your battalions."

"That's not it." Rogue said flatly. "Schrader's not just breeding G-Soldats. There's more to it than just making super-soldiers for the Norts..." His voice trailed off as he came across a panel on the console. "Stand back," he warned.

The pilot glanced around nervously and stepped away. Rogue's hands danced over the controls and with a hissing gust of ice-cold vapour, the rest of the storage tanks emerged from the floor, presenting their contents. Ferris's breath caught in his throat as he realised what he was looking at.

In the closest tank there was a shoal of blank yellow eyes, each in a wire cradle trailing thin optical nerves; another sported a shrunken humanoid arm, the turquoise skin pale and decayed; a grinning skull, half of it still coated with burnt blue-black flesh bobbed in a third. The worst sight was in the middle of the tubes, in the largest of the storage tanks. It was a corpse, missing its right leg in a stump of sheared bone and meat, drifting with its hands pressed against the glass as if attempting to communicate a last dying message. The body was the exact twin to Rogue, from the rough aspect of its face to the cue of white hair on its head. The GI gave the dead man a name. "Zero..."

"Where...?" Ferris managed. "Where did these come from?"

"The Quartz Zone." There was a menace in Rogue's voice that Ferris had never heard before and it made him afraid of the soldier. "They couldn't even let us die in peace. Those Kashar filth, they must have picked the ambush clean. Gathered up the corpses like skevving hyenas. That bitch is nothing but a grave robber!" Rogue stabbed a finger at the display. "The Nort clones have a high mortality rate. Schrader's ripping DNA from dead GIs to solve the problem."

Ferris felt a chill as the weight of their discovery hit him. "And now... she's got a live one."

TWELVE

GODS AND MONSTERS

Ferris followed Rogue through the darkened camp as closely as he could, his head bobbing as his heart jumped at every shadow they passed. The Genetic Infantryman's composed, static face had changed with the sights they'd seen in the laboratory and the pilot could see a smouldering anger building up behind those blank yellow eyes.

"We have to get out of here," Ferris insisted for the third time in as many minutes. "Rogue, come on! You can't take on a dome full of Norts on your own!"

"Wasn't planning on it," the trooper replied. "I've got to warn the others. If they know, maybe they'll see all that Schrader is offering them is a lie."

Ferris grabbed his arm and pulled him to a halt. The GI's stormy expression gave him a second's pause, but he swallowed hard and pressed on. "Look, you're a soldier. You understand all about acceptable losses and all, right? If we stay in this madhouse one second longer than we have to, we'll both wind up like your buddy in the tank back there! Your pals have thrown in with Schrader! Cut them loose and we can make a run for it."

"Acceptable losses." Rogue said the words like they left a sour taste in his mouth. "There's no such thing. If I believed in acceptable losses, I would have left that surgical droid to cut you up and use your organs for spare parts." Ferris blinked, for once at a loss for words. "I wouldn't expect you to understand, but you're right about one thing. I am a soldier and I will not leave my comrades behind. Not Zero and not Gunnar, Helm or Bagman."

The pilot found his voice again. "Even if it could get you killed?"

"Every second we're still breathin', there's a chance we'll find a way to shut this place down." He turned away. "You want to keep running, then you go right ahead. I'm not leaving until the job is done."

"Guess I'm with you, then," Ferris gave a heavy, resigned sigh and nodded. "I'm going to regret this."

"Look on the bright side," the GI said dryly. "With the odds stacked against us, you probably won't regret if for long."

Volks felt a chill on his shoulders and turned over under the bed sheets, instantly returning to wakefulness with the trained rapidity of a seasoned warrior. A wistful smile crossed his lips as his hand snaked across bed in search of warm flesh, but the expression faded when he found nothing but a cold emptiness next to him. He propped himself up and found Schrader standing over a nearby console, working at a display. Once more, she wore her lab coat over her naked form.

Johann slid out of bed and padded over to her, navigating by the light of the flickering screen. He brought a hand around her waist and allowed the other to travel up the coat to her breasts. Schrader brushed him away with the same indifference she might have shown a bothersome insect. "Don't touch me," she said with icy disinterest.

Volks withdrew, his face tightening as if she'd slapped him. "Of course, Kolonel-Doktor." His hands drew into fists of their own accord.

Schrader gave him an arch look of slight amusement. It was plain as day on her face; she enjoyed the little humiliations she forced Volks to endure, almost as if she were more excited by the possibility that he would turn violent towards her than by their mechanical, passionless lovemaking. "Are you growing weary of your duties, Johann?" she asked, masking the moment. "Perhaps you would prefer to remain in your own quarters?"

"I am your loyal subordinate," he replied, heavy with irritation.

She gave a hollow chuckle and studied him with contempt. "Of course you are."

Volks watched her return to the screen, where images of the Rogue Trooper scrolled by, along with biometric readouts and DNA scans. Schrader absently licked her lips as she paged through the files, a desire apparent in her eyes that the kapten had never seen directed at anything else.

An abrupt electronic chirp sounded and the officer crossed to the discarded pile of his uniform clothing. He recovered his communicator and spoke into it. "Volks."

"This is the officer of the watch, sir. Four men are late for check-in and security sensors have registered an unauthorised access in laboratory nine. One of the overdue troopers was guarding the Genetik Infantryman's quarters."

Volks gave Schrader a sharp look. "Mobilise a sweep team and lock down the base perimeter! If that blue freak escapes, I'll have your head!" He angrily snapped off the transmitter and began to dress. "Your new pet seems to have slipped his leash again, Lisle. Perhaps this time I may be forced to damage him before he can be recovered."

"You will do no such thing!" the woman snapped. "Your jealousy disgusts me, Kapten! Show some backbone. You could learn much from the GI."

"Your... attraction to that blue-skin is repellent," Volks said. "Every moment he lives, he is a danger to us!"

Schrader's mood shifted, melting from cold and unyielding to an icy allure. Volks hated himself for it, but he couldn't take his eyes from her. She took Volks's head in her hands and kissed him. "My dear Johann," she breathed, "you must trust me. Rogue's value is incalculable. With him, I will be able to accelerate my plans and achieve my objective in days, not months!" The scientist nodded at the computer screens. "These initial test results are the most promising I have ever had. Just promise me your patience and the project will be complete!"

"You always speak of 'the project', always your secret design..." The officer's anger drained away at her touch. "I have done much for you, Lisle. I have betrayed my oath to the party and crossed lines beyond my own morality. I have never asked anything of you, but now I must. I am not sure I can go any further without knowing where this course will lead us."

"Morality is for the weak, Johann, not the concern of the bold." Schrader looked at him with a clear, steady gaze. "You have given me your faith and perhaps it is time I rewarded it with the truth." She discarded her coat and began to put on her clothes. "Come, then. I will show you."

"But I must recover the GI-"

"Do not trouble yourself," she smiled. "I know where he is. He's like you, Johann. The Rogue Trooper is a slave to fixations that he cannot overcome."

The need for sleep was one of the first things the genetic engineers targeted when the technology to manipulate clone DNA matured; the tissues that produced the fatigue poisons to stifle the muscles and the organs of a man were reconfigured and altered to increase the waking functionality of the gene-soldiers. Nort and Souther scientists both found ways to allow their creations to operate for days on end with only minimal downtime for deep REM sleep. On the open dais of the training deck, Bagman, Helm and Gunnar were testing the limits of their new bodies. They had been sparring non-stop for hours, each one tackling the other two in a three-way unarmed combat. None of them felt sluggish or exhausted.

Gunnar had slipped into his new organic sleeve like he had been born in it, working out the kinks and quirks of the G-Soldat body as if it were a finely tuned machine. He stepped into a judo move, one of a million hand-to-hand tactics drilled into him as a tube trainee and tossed Bagman to the mat. "Ah!" he said. "Just like riding a grav-bike. You never forget how to do it."

Gunnar expected a dour comeback, but Bagman's attention was elsewhere, as was Helm's. The other two troopers had dropped their guard. Gunnar turned and felt mild surprise. "Rogue?"

The GI approached, with Ferris tagging close behind. Gunnar saw the fierce look in Rogue's eyes and instantly knew that trouble was brewing.

Bagman got to his feet; he missed the subtle cue in his comrade's expression. "So, Rogue. You decided then?" He pointed at the GI's chest. "Gonna turn that blue model in for a green machine?"

"Schrader's been lying to you," Rogue said without preamble. "Nort or not, she's using you."

Helm frowned, his hand straying to the back of his neck. "Now, hold on, buddy. Whatever gripes you got against her, she-"

"Damn it, Helm!" Rogue snapped. "All of you, can't you see what's going on here? You think she decanted you new flesh just out of the goodness of her heart?"

Gunnar curled his lip in a sneer. "I'm sure you got an explanation, right?"

"Tell them what we saw," Ferris broke in.

"You keep out of this, pinky," Gunnar growled at the pilot. "Go ahead, Rogue. Tell us."

"I found Zero," he said flatly.

Bagman's face wrinkled in confusion. "Zero's dead, we saw it happen. You vented the corpse over the swamps."

Rogue shook his head. "Not that Zero. I'm talking about the original. The one who died in the Quartz Zone, or at least what's left of him. He's floating in a tank like some cut of preserved freezemeat! Schrader's hoarding GI body parts down in the bio-lab levels, pieces of our dead buddies laid out for her to cut up and screw around with!" His outburst hung in the air, poisoning the room.

"I don't understand..." said Helm.

"Then let me explain it to you," Rogue replied with disdain. "Your new girlfriend, Kolonel-Doktor Schrader, is using the bodies of men we fought with for her little science project!" He stabbed a finger into Gunnar's bare torso. "We all know those Nort G-Soldats are a poor imitation of us... But now these NexGen come out of nowhere and they're faster, stronger. It doesn't take a Genie to figure it out, Schrader's cut up our dead to make those meat bags you're wearing!" Rogue met Gunnar's hard-edged gaze. "For all you know, she could have shreds of skin from your blue hide down there in a tank of formaldehyde!"