Part 22 (2/2)

Old habits die hard, she thought.

'Cost?' Captain Legion asked in a host of voices.

'With immediate treatment, plus physiotherapy, psychotherapy and prosthetics, the estimate is thirty thousand adjusted ergs, Captain.'

'Charge it to my account,' Legion said.

Ace moved to the next pod, anxious to find her friends from Moloch. She recognized the face of one of her attackers beneath a layer of blue gel. His face was burned right down to the bone in places, and one eye had curdled into a white lump.

'Faulty weapon discharge, Ma'am,' the orderly explained. He had obviously mistaken Ace for one of the regular crew, and she did not bother to correct him. 'Third*degree burns over most of the face and neck. Seventy per cent flesh reduction on hands and arms. Left radius and ulna suffered heat recrystallization and a.s.sociated brittleness.'

'Cost?' Legion asked from behind them.

'The reconstructive surgery is fairly basic. If standard EB Corporation ocular replacements are used instead of cloned organs the estimate is only nineteen thousand adjusted ergs.'

There was a pause.

'Too much,' Legion said. 'Terminate treatment.'

Ace stepped towards the next pod.

'No time for that,' Legion barked, and its tone made Ace automatically stop and stand to attention. Part of her was appalled at the ease with which she had slotted straight back into the military lifestyle; part of her welcomed the safety of knowing exactly where she fitted in and what she was supposed to do.

'You can visit them later,' Legion said. 'For now, attend me.' It moved towards the door, aspect changing moment by moment.

Ace followed, casting a last glance back over her shoulder into the medlab.

When it was clear that IMC's newest recruit would not turn back, a grossly fat woman stepped from a side room. 'For an alien, Legion certainly knows which b.u.t.tons to push.'

The orderly shrugged as he went about his task of switching off Company Shock Trooper (Third Cla.s.s) Jason Curtis Dommer's life support machine. 'Have you heard the scuttlebut about her? Apparently, she typed a message into the Belial Base neural net, right where the viruses that Legion's agent planted there would find it and transmit it back here.'

'A message?' the woman asked, jowls quivering.

'Just Legion's name, and the words: ”We must meet”.'

'Very cryptic.'

'Yeah. Trouble is, Legion's agent spotted it, thought she'd been rumbled, knocked the girl senseless and deleted the message.'

'So she knew Legion was here?'

The orderly glanced up, his face underlit by the row of tell*tales along Dommer's pod. 'Yeah, but the word is that she didn't realize IMC sent a whole fleet. She thought Legion was working alone. When Dommer and the others burst in, she freaked. Lucky she's still alive.'

He flicked a last switch, and Jason Dommer slid unknowingly from life into death.

'Aren't we all?' Bronwen ap Bryn said, as she stroked her tattooed scalp thoughtfully and turned to leave the sick*bay.

Chapter Thirteen.

Piper O'Rourke used her hand to s.h.i.+eld the beam of her torch as she crept along the darkened corridors of Belial Base towards the main airlock. The cold light silhouetted the bones of her hand like an X-ray. Part of her wanted to stop and stare, entranced by the sight: the rest of her screamed silently in the darkness. She was losing it. She was losing it. She was losing it.

She stopped and rested her forehead against the cold metal walls of the corridor. Keep it together, Piper, and you might still get out of this alive. She lifted a hand to her face and wiped away a greasy sheen of sweat. Although it was cold and the air was running out, she was burning up.

Burning up.

Paula.

Oh, Christ.

Sucking in a lungful of cold air, Piper moved once more down the corridor. She only had to make it to the airlock, seal the inner door behind her and wait...

Wait as Paula had waited, as Earth was waiting...

For IMC to help.

Piper stopped, suddenly, twenty metres short of the airlock. Sounds echoed out of the darkness towards her.

Voices.

'You don't understand... He's trying to kill himself!'

'Then who's responsible for all this?'

'...b.l.o.o.d.y Piper. She brained me when I tried to reboot the neural net!'

More voices, speaking in hurried whispers.

Bannen, whom she'd left in the Operations Room, supposedly wracked with grief over the abrupt crash of the simularity of his son. d.a.m.n his thick skull: she should have splashed his brains across the wall. Bishop. Teal. Bernice.

The Doctor.

But that was impossible! She'd killed killed him. him.

Piper groaned inwardly.

They knew. They'd tricked her, and they knew. She'd even given them the evidence herself.

Fool!

Piper ran a hand through her hair. Her torch flickered across the wall and she switched it off, holding her breath in case someone had noticed the distant gleam of light.

Nothing. The pitch of the voices did not change. They didn't know she was there. There might still be a chance of escape.

<script>