"Shootin's what I do..." the sniper wheezed, a wet gurgle stifling the last of the comment.

CHAPTER 14.

"What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l was that?"

Pinned beneath a toppled rack of electronics, Taz cursed relentlessly as the tremor subsided.

With a grunt, he bench-pressed the heavy rack off his chest. The wide metal framework groaned in protest, rising from the floor just enough for Taz to draw his legs up and into play. The powerful limbs acted like a forklift and drove the bulky ma.s.s even higher. Metal squealed as the rack bent in half, folding back on itself. One leg now completely free, he stomped the last of the confining debris into a crumpled freeform sculpture.

Taz scowled behind the faceless mask as he climbed to his feet and looked around the room. Evenly rectangular, the grey room was dominated by floor-to-ceiling columns of computer equipment. Rainbow shrouds of fiber optic cable had been woven around each stack. Throughout the tangle of wrecked equipment, countless tiny lights flickered.

Power.

"Well I'll be b.u.g.g.e.red!" Taz shook his head and uttered the words aloud, "The b.l.o.o.d.y little bottler actually did it." A genuine note of awe suffused his naturally irreverent tone. For an armored Marine, power meant life.

"That just leaves us stuck in a gibber at the a.r.s.e end of Hay, h.e.l.l and Booligal, but crikey, it's nothin to go all sarky about, right?" Taz grinned for a moment at the dark humor before he was struck once more by the urgency of his own mission and quickly scanned the room for any signs that might point to a medical facility. He had torn a path through a maze of rooms and corridors that spanned several floors. Thus far, he had failed to uncover so much as a first aid kit.

The signs weren't promising-- by the look of things much of the ship had been cannibalized. Countless walls were adorned with little more than severed bolts and dusty outlines that told of missing equipment. Taz chewed on his lower lip as he considered yet another glaring vacancy.

Who the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l took all this s.h.i.t, and to where?

A burst of static stopped Taz in his tracks. His CAR slid unconsciously into his grasp as he turned slowly, locking in on the garbled sound of a human voice in the hallway. A faint, mechanical click preceded the soft whine of the weapon's activation.

Taz squinted as he strained to listen. The voice was unfamiliar, definitely not one of his teammates. The Rimmer? He instantly discarded the idea-- the Rimmer was in no shape to be out on a stroll.

Friends of the Rimmer...? Taz felt his teeth grind softly, now that was a different story.

The Aussie took a step forward. His right boot met the pitched floor with a dull metallic clank as the magnetic coils snapped it securely in place. Easing forward, Taz lifted his left foot. At once a length of cable slid across the floor, following the motion of his boot. It crackled angrily as it snaked across the grated metal, popping a comet's tail of blue-white sparks.

Taz froze as his gaze surfed along the length of cable to an overturned rack of transformers where a red and black warning sign read DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE.

"Oh doesn't that just b.l.o.o.d.y figure," he snarled as he scanned the serpentine tangle of wire that lay between himself and the door. Easing his left foot back from where it started, Taz watched the end of the cable relax in turn, laying down like a sightless viper.

"Well screw this," Taz spat derisively. "If the brainy little b.a.s.t.a.r.d needs something in here, he can b.l.o.o.d.y well fix it."

The CAR erupted with a brilliant muzzle flash as a stream of covalent rounds chewed ravenously into the high-voltage rack. Bullets discharged with a corona of cyan light as metal, plastic and rubber disintegrated. The net of wire went black.

Taz stood in the darkness, framed by rising tendrils of smoke. "No points for finesse," he snickered quietly, "but a b.l.o.o.d.y answer all the same."

Finesse had never been his strong suit. It remained his firm opinion that Marines were not screened for the fine arts of a.n.a.lysis and negotiation. His philosophy remained a simple one: If you want to build a bridge, send an engineer. If you want to kill every last b.a.s.t.a.r.d on the bridge, send a Marine.

Taz saw himself on the far edge of that scale. He'd been told that Monster could be a real bad-a.s.s when the s.h.i.t hit the fan but as far as Taz was concerned, even Monster was slow to the trigger. Plan this, plan that-- for such a beefy b.a.s.t.a.r.d Monster could be a real broken record. When Taz wasn't fighting, he was looking ahead to the next fight. Planning didn't go much past re-loading.

He listened carefully to the stuttered speech that echoed down the hall. "Time to do what I do best," he muttered as he shouldered the CAR. With a deep breath he stepped through the door and snapped a crisp ninety-degree turn.

The corridor was empty. No Rimmers, no bug-eyed aliens. While Taz had no illusions of being a rocket scientist, he was bright enough to know that aliens wouldn't label their ships in English.

Which just left the Rimmer solution, he reflected, though for what dumb-a.s.s reason they stuck a ship down here was beyond anything he could guess. But a Rimmer ship meant Rimmer troops, and Taz had a real good idea how to deal with them.

His sensors scoured the darkened corridor for signs of life. Intermittent light flickered along the length of the deserted corridor. Biometrics came back zero: no myoelectric current, no thermal change, no sweat in the air. But vibro-acoustic confirmed what his ears already knew; a broken voice echoed nearby.

The Marine advanced cautiously down the sloped hall, moving past one door after another until he came to one that pulsed with acoustic vibration. An armored foot lashed out like a battering ram. The metal door tore from the wall and clanged across the floor. Taz stepped in low as the barrel of the rifle swept the room.

Stainless steel counters stretched across the back walls, clear plastic guards angled to protect meals that no longer filled the empty shelves. Refrigeration units lined the right wall, their grimy plexan doors open to reveal gutted interiors. Tables and chairs lay tangled in the low corner of the room.

A synthetic voice, clearer now, rambled cyclicly from his left where a screen glowed behind its shattered frame. Most of the luminous panel was filled with a detailed floorplan. He fixed on a red dot that throbbed with the eternal legend, "You are here."

Taz could not suppress the grin that spread behind his armored facemask. An index scrolled below the floor plan and he scanned for the word SICKBAY. Pa.s.sing through the Ms, he locked on a suitable subst.i.tute: MED CENTER.

"About b.l.o.o.d.y time," he muttered triumphantly, extending his index finger to give the b.u.t.ton a light tap. In response the floor plan re-oriented, a red pathway tracing a direct route to the medical facility.

"Well too right!" Taz chuckled as he absorbed the path. Just two levels higher up, down the hall and on the left.

Taz turned from the room and charged towards the turbolift, a single thought in his mind.

So whose Mr. b.l.o.o.d.y Finesse now?

CHAPTER 15.

Ridgeway grabbed the medic's outstretched hand and pulled himself out of the shaft. His bruised body wanted nothing more than to tumble to the floor, but he didn't allow himself the luxury. The lift doors closed behind him with a soft hiss as Ridgeway pressed straight to his feet, shaking off the arduous climb.

The Marines had made their way up the shaft and exited above the wrecked command center. Damage from the explosion would prevent a liftcar from descending any further. At the moment, Ridgeway had no idea if the elevator system worked at all.

He looked around the room and tried to a.s.sess the situation. Rising levels of exhaustion and injury conspired to thwart even that minimal a task. A ma.s.sive headache pounded his skull as he tried to pull up the TAC. Only sporadic bits of visual information skittered across his visual plane, none of it resolving to a useful clarity. The chaotic lightshow only aggravated the pain that throbbed behind his eyes.

Dammit, Ridgeway snarled inwardly, explosion fried my TAC. The loss denied him location data for his Marines as well as some aspects of augmented reality. Telepresence was offline as well.

"Taz!" Ridgeway barked into the ComLink, his voice hoa.r.s.e with fatigue. "Taz, come in."

"I copy Majah, but I can't get a fix on ya. Where are you?"

Ridgeway looked up at the frame of the turbolift. A large blue 37 was emblazoned on the pale grey wall.

"Level 37, just outside the turbolift shaft."

"How's the LT?"

"Not good." Ridgeway's voice dropped an octave, "Tell me you found a sickbay."

"I can do you one better." The reply was oddly upbeat.

"Dammit Taz, I don't need any bulls.h.i.t right now. We are out of time and--"

Ridgeway was interrupted by a sudden hiss as the turbolift doors slid open to reveal a brightly illuminated lift car. Taz stood solidly in the door and jabbed his thumb upward.

"Next stop, Sickbay."

CHAPTER 16.

Ridgeway's body melted into the padded chair, a thin blanket drawn tight around his shoulders. Even shivering from the cold, every fiber of his being was thankful to be out of the armor. Ugly smears of color covered his tall frame, sprawling patches of bruised purples and sick greenish-yellows. Running a hand through his short hair, Ridgeway would have given anything for a hot shower.

While the Sickbay still felt like a walk-in freezer, the temperature had actually risen considerably since the restoration of power. Ridgeway's breath still fogged into soft white clouds, but thankfully, rapid-onset hypothermia no longer remained one of the most pressing threats.

The overhead lights flickered, one of numerous random stutters that gave a persistent reminder of the tenuous link they had forged to an unstable power supply. Routing that power through a tattered network of wire was another matter altogether. Ship-wide environmental control remained doggedly offline, as did the artificial gravity system that would align 'down' with the angle of the deck.

The latter point was a small matter in context, Ridgeway conceded, but as battered as the Marines were, the two-axis slope made the simple act of walking a continual nuisance. A slip often resulted in a chaotic, cursing tumble to the aft starboard corner of the room where a variety of furniture and debris had long since collected.

At least the chairs are stuck in place, Ridgeway noted with dull grat.i.tude. Merlin had tack-welded several of them to the floor, providing a welcome, stable perch. Facing the bow, the rearward tilt of the floor turned any chair into a natural recliner. At this stage, the mere chance to sit securely bordered on decadence.

Drawing in a long, slow breath of cold air, Ridgeway quietly considered the situation. That they had survived thus far was a miracle, an outcome as unforeseeable as the presence of an underground starship. For the hundredth time he sifted the scant facts at hand for a logical explanation.

The mystery of an entombed vessel had an undeniably gothic appeal, but a riddl of that scope could take months, if not years, to divine. As a Marine commander with a team in jeopardy, Ridgeway needed to know nothing more of the ship than how to wring from it's carca.s.s the resources he needed to get them out alive.

The vessel's size alone made the task a daunting one. Extracting a piece of valuable data on a vessel this large, especially one so badly damaged, would be much like trying to find a specific rock in an asteroid belt. Ridgeway swagged the ship to be a kilometer in length, maybe more. As for decks he could only guess- fifty, sixty?

In many aspects, the ship's design was familiar. Engineering filled the ship's belly, a large part of that the immense drive system. Doors and chairs matched human ergonomics. So many things looked decidedly human, yet in other ways the stranded vessel looked like nothing Ridgeway had ever seen.

Sickbay proved to be one of those instances. The lab itself was a long rectangle that bottlenecked before opening into a circular room at the far end. Compared with the dense mechanical clutter that predominated the ship thus far, Sickbay was spartan to the point of sterility. The walls were covered in a seamless grey veneer that gave the interior an oddly plastic appearance. Spread along this sea of grey, dozens of flat displays were flush-mounted at even intervals.

A series of extended consoles ran along both sides of the room, their curving decks covered by more of the seamless dove. Even the black rubber floor looked to have been cut from one large piece. If there was a crevice large enough to give refuge to a microbe, he couldn't see it.

Ridgeway's brow furrowed. Not so much as a stethoscope or a band-aid either. Had it not been designated as such, little evidence would have pointed to it having a medical function.

Truth be told, the room had proven better suited for a repair shop than a sickbay. Suits of powered armor lay scattered across the pebbled rubber floor in testament to that a.s.sertion, full-torso hatches clamsh.e.l.led open to reveal empty interiors. Twisted cable snakes ran from each dark grey figure, weaving between chairs and other suits of armor to collect at an open panel below one of the consoles. Tiny lights blinked from within the aperture, confirming at least for the moment the flow of electricity.

Ridgeway watched Merlin move slowly from one suit to the next, monitoring connections and power levels. Each suit hummed as it devoured current. Though showing no outward sign of activity, Ridgeway knew that the damaged armor was doing more than just recharging it's batteries. With a decent stream of power the Carbonite plates would state-shift, becoming fluid. The nanotube structures slowly realigned themselves, conforming to a dimensional magnetic blueprint. Once re-ordered, the Carbonite would coalesce to it's former rigidity. The process was slow, far too slow to be observed by the naked eye. But given time and a good supply of juice, the armor would heal.

Complex electronics proved another matter entirely. You didn't have to tear a hole in armor to damage something inside. Severe dents, or spalling from a powerful impact, could play havoc with circuits. When that happened, wires and processors had to be fixed by hand or replaced. Technology could provide only so much magic.

He watched Merlin fuss over an ugly crater in Monster's armor. The engineer measured the width and depth of the damage with a small optical caliper. Grumbling under his breath, Merlin pulled a tube from his pocket and squeezed a thick metallic paste into the wound, an amalgam of fine carbon particles suspended in the silvery adhesive gel. Merlin worked the paste deep into the scorched depression.

Ridgeway was no tech, but he understood the process. Mnemonic reconstruction could redistribute material, but not replace pieces that had broken off. The paste provided a manageable supply of raw material that could be a.s.similated in the reconstruction process. Over the years, Ridgeway's armor had ama.s.sed several pounds of the stuff.

As though he sensed Ridgeway's stare, Merlin paused and looked up. The engineer's left eye was blackened but the swelling had not closed it completely. The damage gave Merlin a distinct squint on one side that made his walnut brown eyes seem even darker. The discoloration swept back under the line of his jet-black hair.

Merlin had taken woefully little time to rest as he fought to establish a stable baseline of heat and power. He exhaled heavily as he mopped his hands on the front of his badly-stained T-shirt. Blood, sweat and grime had collaborated to transform a swath of olive green to near-black. Merlin stepped over the motionless armor and limped to Ridgeway. With a remarkable level of professionalism, the engineer delivered his report.

"ReGen is running, but it's d.a.m.n slow. The engine is cranking a lot of juice, but there must be a million shorts between the core and here. I've been fighting with the mains for a couple of hours now, trying to get the grid for this deck to reset. If I can get a solid line of power, things oughtta pick up. I'm close." Merlin's shoulders slumped, "I think."

Ridgeway nodded, one eyebrow arched. "Just don't do it by wiring yourself to any more panels."

Merlin blinked, then looked down. "I'm sorry Major, that was--"

"Stow it. You had the ball, you made the call. We're all alive because of it."

Merlin nodded, wincing noticeably at the word 'all'. He held up his right hand, the first two fingers crossed. "I'm on the power, major. I'll get it." He turned and sidestepped across the slope in the direction of the open conduit.

While he gave no outward sign of recognition at the time, Ridgeway had noted Merlin's response to the word 'all' and looked upslope to the circular room at the far end of the Sickbay. The room differed dramatically from the rectangle of soft grey. Its curved wall was made of a seamless piece of gloss black gla.s.s that stretched from floor to ceiling. A six-foot matrix of orange spheres hung from the domed ceiling, bathing the room in a fiery glow that pulsed slowly. Ridgeway was painfully aware of what lay beneath the throbbing lights.

A large metal-frame table sat center stage, thick cables draped from it's stainless-steel underbelly like dreadlocks. Darcy was stretched out on a plate of the same obsidian gla.s.s that made up the curved wall. Each of the table's four corners ended in what appeared to be an open, three-inch drainpipe. Tubes ran from each drain into the articulated pedestal that supported the table.

It looked more like an autopsy table than anything else, a fact that afforded Ridgeway no comfort. But a full-length IRA hung directly overhead and the dead would have had no need for infra-red therapy.

The array had proven to be one of the few devices in Sickbay that actually worked. Infrared therapy had long served as a medical standby for its ability to accelerate the natural healing process. A steady regimen of pulsed IR could cut down recuperation time for a variety of minor injuries, but it would be no replacement for surgery in the case of major trauma. At the most optimistic level, it bought them a little extra time. Very little.

St.i.tch hovered around the unconscious sniper, his face haggard. Eighteen hours had pa.s.sed since the six Marines found themselves in the lake. The medic had stayed at Darcy's side since their arrival in Sickbay, taking only the barest time to sh.o.r.e up the team's other wounds as they were uncovered. What little sleep he had managed was done propped in a chair, his head against the cold table surface.

St.i.tch leaned unsteadily against the wall, eyes sunken into bruised-grey hollows. Dark red streaks crossed the front of the medic's T-shirt, although by now Ridgeway had little guess as to whose blood was where. He looked at the gaunt figure and wondered if the doctor would outlive the patient.

Not that Darcy was far from dead. She had slipped into a coma some seven hours before and thus far had shown no sign of emerging. The aggregate of injuries had been compounded by the delay in medical attention. The combination was proving to be a deadly mix.

Saving my a.s.s in the turbolift didn't help, Ridgeway thought with a frown of recrimination. Even in the midst of dying, Darcy had been all Marine.

With a low groan Ridgeway stood from the chair and pulled himself laboriously upslope to climb the short flight of stairs that led to the unconscious sniper.

Darcy lay motionless in the oscillating orange light. The Martian glow exaggerated the bruising along her face and neck. Swollen flesh distorted her features, one eye and one nostril completely closed over. Her blonde hair hung limp and matted with blood.

She looked dead already, Ridgeway thought grimly. If they didn't come up with a miracle soon, that appearance would become a reality.

A portion of Darcy's Kevlar-fiber shirt had been cut open and pulled back to reveal the gaping wound in her ribcage. Over the last nine hours St.i.tch had made three attempts to close off sources of blood loss. In spite of his efforts, her condition continued to slide.