Recon Marines III: The Marine's Doctor Read Online Free PDF Page A

front of a corroded metal door.
    “ Please stay behind me.”
Mak took a laser pistol off the wide weapons belt he wore and
melted off the lock and doorknob. He lifted his booted foot and
kicked the door open. Taking a stick from another pocket on his
belt, he shook it and then tossed it in the door. It flashed with
brilliance and then settled into a soft whitish glow. Mak walked
inside the building with Kory hard on his heels and the rest of
them trailing behind.
    Beyond the door a hallway of
disappointing dullness stretched into dimness. Simple military gray
covered the metal walls, ceiling and floor. Mak stopped at a panel
along one wall, jerking on the simple latch a few times before it
opened with a reluctant squeal. He leaned in, studying the interior
for a full minute.
    “ What is that?” Helen
asked when the silence stretched.
    Mak didn’t answer, reaching into the
panel and flipping switches. After a few echoing clicks, overhead
lights flickered and then decided to stay lit. “Power grid is still
active. It must have a crystallized iron source.” Mak met Molly’s
gaze. “That kind of energy generator is only available through the
military.”
    “ So this is what Admiral
Lester said it was, a military lab.” Molly’s earlier enthusiasm for
discovering new things wilted. Lester and the other traitors who’d
conducted these experiments had been real monsters. Their evil
would hang like a shadow over whatever useful things Molly might
glean from this mission.
    Mak took the lead again. No doors
lined the hallway but after twenty yards it opened into a work
area. Metal lab tables still gleamed beneath a thin layer of
dust.
    Molly hurried forward, but as she
looked around, she saw that the tech units had been cleared out.
Not even an old fashioned computer remained. She headed for some
drawers and cabinets set into one wall.
    Mak stopped her and clipped a radio to
her collar, his warm fingers skimming her neck. “I’m going to
secure the rest of the facility. The corporal and Pender will
remain with you. Call me if you see or hear anything
disturbing.”
    After he left, they all took a section
of the storage and searched it. Andy Box helped them but Kory stood
guard, sending uneasy glances toward the hall Mak had disappeared
into. They found medical supplies, tubes and hoses used for
testing, but no paperwork or clues to what had been done in the
room.
    “ They really cleaned up,
didn’t they?” Hector said.
    The radio on Molly’s collar woke up
before she could agree. Mak’s voice echoed oddly through it as if
he stood in a vast cave. “Dr. Drant, you should join me. Just
follow the hallway.”
    They pushed the drawers and closets
closed and hurried down the hall. Hopefully he’d found some
indication of where the researchers had taken their work after this
base was closed.
    Molly stopped so suddenly at the end
of the hall that Hector bumped into her. Mak stood in the middle of
a round room as windowless as the previous one. This room had a set
of operating tables in the middle, stained with dark splotches. Old
blood, but that wasn’t what held her attention.
    Cages lined the wall, some occupied by
piles of…of bones, skin and hair. Carcasses of something or
someone. Molly heard the others gasping and cursing behind her as
she walked toward one of the cages. A skeletonized hand stuck out
through the thick-wired squares. They’d kept people penned in
here.
    Aware of Mak at her shoulder, Molly
squatted down to look closer at the body. The nails of the long,
thick fingers curved into sharp, but chipped weapons as if the poor
thing had tried to dig its way out. Only a faint odor of decay
remained. The dry air of the facility had nearly mummified the
carcass. Shaggy dark hair covered its head, having grown long in a
tangled mess. A thick beard covered its face and hid its mouth. No
clothing covered its male parts that lay as shriveled bits in the
thick hair growing from its groin and spreading down its