Slave World 2 - The Ties That Bind (32 page)
Nathan leaned back in his chair with a deep breath, bathed lightly in the low intensity glow of a wall-mounted lamp beside his desk. He hit enter on the user interface display, all that was left to do now was wait. He had to wait for the ship to arrive, still surprised that Donovan had agreed so easily to his outlandish request. It wasn’t everyday that you had to come up with a legitimate excuse, and the paper trail to back it, for a classified Fleet sneak ship going through a depot level refit to come up missing for an extended period of time. He had to wait for the rest of the weapons and gear to arrive; again, a small fortune of military contraband courtesy of his brother. He had to wait three more weeks until he could begin his hunt for Margo with an estimated two weeks of transit time. His fist slammed down on the desktop in growing frustration, sending an echoing thump throughout his study. The empty bottle of vitamin-rich fruit and vegetable juice near the edge of the desk teetered precariously for a moment, before tumbling lightly to the floor.
Recovery was optional, it always had been in Nathan’s case, but the down time would bring him back to full speed before the rescue operation actually began; his strength was slowly returning by the hour, and every hour counted when preparing for battle. The nanites were still working overtime to repair his shattered body, and his lung function was quickly approaching the 60% mark. The internal oxygen storage cell in his chest would continue to make up the difference in the meantime. The integrity of his epidermis was nearly restored along with his body’s natural immune system, and the medication control dispenser compensated accordingly, gradually reducing its steady flow of antibiotics and painkillers. His overall medical condition seemed trivial when compared to Margo’s situation, though. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since it first came to light. The truth of the matter was, she was slowly dying.
If Alex had been correct in his assessment of her condition, and if Nathan understood all of the technical jargon he’d used, Margo would simple cease to exist as who she was in less than a year. The genetic modification, the splicing of Equine DNA with hers, would ultimately change her into something else, no different than in the case of a freakish mutation. Her cellular structure from the ground up was being altered, replaced by whatever this new cellular growth was. When her old cells died, her ‘human’ cells, new ones, inhuman ones, replaced them. The serum Alex was working on was supposed to inhibit, if not drastically slow the process until Nathan could take her to an off world specialist. Of course, Alex had scoffed at the idea, there was no cure, no permanent treatment, or reversal for what had been done to her. There was only the hope of managing it so it didn’t become any worse than it already was. That in itself was bad enough, but when combined with the malfunction in her processor and current mental state… Nathan accessed Margo’s service record, kept on file in the memory core of his control processor. He scrolled through it quickly, opening her classified medical records much as he did one night back on Slave World. Now he viewed it in a new light, and a possibly new understanding.
She’d been diagnosed as Bi-Polar with abnormal brain activity, along with a slew of other psychiatric disorders, with several more developing throughout the course of her career. Alex had surmised that the tampering with her processor, and the long-term effect of the remote on her central nervous system and cerebral tissue, was the result of her recent hostility and behavioral issues. Nathan wasn’t so sure any longer. What if the problem had been there all along? What if she’d been misdiagnosed from the very beginning and the processor and remote were simply catalysts that aggravated the condition? It was obvious from Alex’s medical diagnosis that ‘something’ physical was happening inside her head, a rewiring of synaptic pathways, or possibly a continually worsening condition of neurons simply short-circuiting. Maybe it was a combination of things, the processor, her genetic alteration, and her pregnancy. Nathan couldn’t deny the fact of her psychiatric history and some of her behavior, even after receiving treatment back home, often fluctuating through a wide range of worsening contradictions.
“Dammit,” Nathan growled, easing out of his chair, beginning to pace the room. It was then he realized how horribly he failed the most important mission of his life, how horribly he’d failed the woman he loved. He should have smuggled Margo off of Slave World in the very beginning, regardless of the consequences. He should have destroyed the remote the night Michael was killed. He should have never given in to Margo’s obsession with retrieving her ship. He should have never let his guard down, removing Alex’s security blocks and trusting him to the extent he had. He should have taken Margo someplace she could receive the professional help she needed. He should have been the man that she had always wanted, and none of this would have ever happened.
Nathan clenched his fists, while his simmering anger quickly grew into a desperate need to hit something…hard. He shut off the desk lamp, stalking down the hallway with the intention of doing just that.
***
James lay on his side with an exhausted, yet satisfied grin, slowly stroking Sandy’s sweat-soaked hair. She was face down, sprawled out and dead to the world, while snoring softly. It was no surprise the poor kid was wore out, after a two and a half hour marathon with the ‘Maestro of Flesh’, himself. She never should have said he was full of shit, he’d made her bark this time alright, and beg, and whimper, and every other sound of passion in between. James could honestly say that she was one of the few women he’d ever wanted to pleasure sexually, other than for his own twisted amusement. Maybe this unraveling mystery was what had sucked him in, in the first place.
Wroth had always known there was something different about Sandy, that much was obvious while serving together in Fleet, but he was only now beginning to understand how different she really was. Sandy might have a confident and domineering personality outside of the bedroom, a ball-busting bitch was another way of putting it, but after stepping through the door her smart-mouthed aggressiveness vanished in the blink of an eye. In a way he hadn’t been kidding when he’d said that he’d had better; he literally had to coach her, telling her what, when, and how to do everything to some extent. She’d slowly been improving, but the harsh reality of the situation was that she was still a virtual stranger to a man’s body, and her skills in a sexual sense were nearly childish. For once this didn’t bother James, because he had no expectations from Sandy, other than letting him work his magic on her. And the things he had discovered while doing so…
The taste of her on his lips in any sense was incredible, and the nearness of her particular scent of femininity made him continually hard. It had to be the way she looked up at him during the act itself and while she came, that made him want to see that expression again and again. Her eyes, wet and fathomless, became an avalanche of emotion. Of course, there was the glow of pleasure resonating through them, but it was almost as if she was surprised or in shock, from what she was experiencing. She didn’t scream, or moan, or make hysterically exaggerated sounds; that came before the fact. She simply froze, locking up, gasping lightly for breath, while staring up at him with the windows to her soul thrown wide open. She was so damn beautiful at that moment, when time seemed to stand still, more so than any other woman he’d ever known.
James quietly slipped from bed trying not to wake her, and the sheets slid after him exposing the lower portion of Sandy’s body. He paused for a moment, eyes locked on her pale ass and the glistening strip of dark pink flesh nestled deep between her thighs. In the past he might have left her that way to enjoy the pornographic aftermath of his latest conquest, but instead he carefully pulled the sheet back into place. Something else he just realized about Sandy was that he respected her as more than just a foul-mouthed, ass-kicking Marine he happened to be screwing at the moment.
He dressed quickly, putting the same clothes back on he’d been wearing, minus boots and underwear: a light brown Fleet issue tank top undershirt, and an old pair of ‘chameleon’ fatigue pants. They were the same inert, dreary gray, no different than they had been since the day the photo-optic sensor and camouflage program processor had shorted out. He stared at his last item of debate resting in a crumpled pile on the floor beside the rest of Sandy’s discarded clothing; her panties. The fact that she even owned a pair of sexy turquoise low riders, let alone brought them with her, had really thrown James for a loop. Why he picked them up and put them on his head, wearing them like a crown of smut, was an even bigger mystery. Then again, he’d stopped trying to figure out his foolish impulses long ago and just went with the flow.
He gave Sandy one last glance, noticing her flushed and sweaty afterglow, and adjusted the environmental controls by the door. It was nothing that turning the room temp down a few degrees, and getting some fresh airflow going won’t cure. Not that James minded the extra heat at his age, mixed with the tempting odor of lingering sex, but he wanted her to be comfortable while he was gone.
As James retraced his steps back to the main foray, wishing the home had functional AI so he could ask directions, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was wandering aimlessly through a luxurious, perfectly displayed, yet generically furnished open concept hotel. On occasion, he even saw small placards on the walls at intersections, labeling the rooms of individual hallways. Several down one hallway caught his interest, and James followed them, poking his head into a select few with a wily grin and an approving nod. He knew exactly where he was bringing Sandy, after she woke up.
Nothing James had seen thus far, from the unisex décor and unused furnishings fit the Colonel’s taste, at least from what he knew about him. It wasn’t until he passed through a more conventional sized kitchen with an adjoining living room and office that signs of personalized occupation began to appear. The door to one of the rooms down a hallway stood open, echoing with loud aggressive music, and was underscored by a muted thumping that held an irregular cadence all its own. The bold, factory production red and white sign stopped him at the threshold of the hallway no different than if he slammed face first into a shield barrier.
‘Warning. This facility is protected by Vanguard Security Inc. The use of deadly force without further notification has been authorized for unlawful trespassing.’
There wasn’t a doubt in Wroth’s mind any longer, that he’d found the Colonel’s inner sanctum.
“Colonel!” Wroth tried yelling over the music. He cupped his hands around his mouth, taking a deep, lung-filling breath that would lower his voice to the equivalent of parade ground thunder. “Colonel Burke! It’s Wroth!”
The music ceased abruptly after.
“What do you want? I’m busy.”
“I wanted to talk to you about a few things; is it safe to proceed?”
There was silence for several long heartbeats, long enough that Wroth began to wonder if he was being ignored. He was about to call out again, when Burke finally answered him.
“Come on back.”
James couldn’t help but pause and look at the various graphic art moments of Marine Corps history lining both sides of the hallway’s length, dating back to its birth at Tun Tavern in 1775. There were renditions of the storming of the Imperial Palace in Tripoli during the Barbary Pirates War, the battle of Chapultepec during the Mexican American War, and the battle of Belleau Wood where the Marines had earned the nickname of ‘Devil Dogs’ during Earth’s First World War. The center point of the scene was of a rough and defiant looking Gunnery Sergeant leading an infantry charge, yelling over his shoulder while pointing his rifle at the German held trenches. Below the painting, in stylized scrip, his immortalized words would be remembered forever.
“Come on you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?”
The next two were from Earth’s Second World War, the battle of Tarawa and the immortal flag rising on Mt. Surabatchi on Iwo Jima. The next that followed was from what had come to be known as the Forgotten War in Korea, the bloody battle of the Chosin Reservoir. The Siege of Khe Sanh was followed by portraits of the amphibious assault on Taiwan and Pyongyang, and the post nuclear humanitarian mission in South Korea during Earth’s third and final World War. There was even one representing the single shining moment during a thirty year block of humility when the United Nation’s Army was formed, and the Marine Corps was virtually disbanded except for a few ceremonial regiments. All that changed with Earth’s first alien contact, Promixia Centauri, and subsequently Earth’s ‘First Interstellar War’ against an alien species. The Multi-National Marine Corps lived again as independent regiments within The Terran Defense Force for nearly seventy-five years, before finally finding a home as the combative branch of The Combined Fleet of Man, simply known as Fleet Strike.
While quickly taking in a proud and well known glimpse of Fleet Strike history, Wroth passed a darkened bedroom, the heavy security door to a secured arms locker, and what had to be the Colonel’s office. Hanging beside it was a life-size portrait of the legendary Lt. General Lewis Burwell ‘Chesty’ Puller, the most decorated Marine in history.
The athletic center at the end of the hallway was by far the most spacious and outfitted of the rooms he’d seen in this part of the house, but that was no surprise; the Colonel had always had a fanatical obsession with physical fitness. What did take him by surprise was the horror show in the far corner of the room; there was blood everywhere.
Burke was dressed in a pair of exercise shorts, low cut traction slippers, and knuckle-padded leather gloves, while pacing aggressively around a large gravity punching bag suspended between the floor and ceiling by invisible magnetic ties. It was the kind used in Fleet Strike for augmented troops; the more force exerted against it, the greater the resistance became and its once off-white synthetic canvas cover was nothing but gory swatches and vaguely fist-like explosions of crimson. The twelve-foot square padded mat beneath it wasn’t much better, dotted with random droplets of smeared blood and footprints. Even the two large wall-mounted mirrors that faced outward, joining at the corner, bore numerous speckles and streaks of red. Burke was the source of all of it, he was soaked in a glistening hue of bloody sweat from the shoulders down. Much of it seeped from reopened wounds and splits in newly re-grown, yet thin skin. It was his hands, elbows, knees, and feet, all points of violent impact that bore the worst damage.