Wheeling back, I saw a pair on the hunt. They were coming in low on all fours, under the cloud of gore. These two puppies were smarter than most, and they almost got me. I was jabbed in both legs, but then Carlos showed up and helped me kill them.
He stepped in front of me then. “Go on. You did your part.”
Turning, I tried to escape up the hill. I really did. But my legs just didn’t work anymore, and my suit was running out of power.
“I can’t run,” I said.
Carlos glanced at me. “Okay. Have it your way.”
Then, we began to fight. It went on for a long time. At that point, I figured that I’d killed about a hundred dogs. Before they brought us down at last, we must have killed a hundred more.
In the end I was on my back, gasping in my suit. Carlos was standing over me like a lion protecting his kill.
He was good. Better than I’d thought he would be. I admired his economy of motion, his practiced killing strokes and jabs. He fought like it was second nature to him—and I guess it was.
I had shit my suit by then, but I didn’t even care anymore. Then I died, probably from blood loss—but at least the enemy knew they’d been in a real fight.
-52-
When I was finally revived, it was up on the starship in orbit. Dominus held a fixed position over the island where all the fighting had taken place.
Brushing aside bio-people like they were fans wanting an autograph, I stepped out of the chambers on Blue Deck and laughed. What a fight that had been! I was proud of myself, and I was proud of Carlos, too.
But my good mood quickly faded. People were running around the ship, and they were following arrows to various destinations.
“Uh-oh…” I said aloud.
I contacted Turov—or at least I attempted to. She didn’t answer at first. Finally, however, on the fourth attempt she did answer her tapper and her tiny face looked up at me from my forearm.
“McGill? What are you doing on Dominus?”
“I guess I finally died down there, Tribune.”
“Right… of course. It’s going badly on that shitty island. Do you know of any way to penetrate that dome?”
I thought about the shaft at the bottom of the sea. “Yes,” I said. “Down in the ocean there’s this—”
“Whatever. Get up to Gold Deck—now!”
Forcing my legs into a gait that was half-stagger and half-run, I did as she commanded. Less than three minutes later, I was crowding my way onto the bridge.
I was already regretting my earlier bout of honesty. I could have enjoyed a hot shower and a good meal, maybe. But noooo, I had to go and open my big mouth about finding a hole in that big glass wall.
“Tribune?” I asked. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m sorry, sirs,” said the marine that had my arm in a lock—or so he supposed. In truth, he was just sort of hanging onto me, panting and looking stressed.
“Oh, jeez!” I said. “I’m sorry boy, I didn’t see you there. Maybe I should just walk back to the entrance and let you usher me in properly.”
Turov finally noticed us. “There you are, McGill. Stop playing with the guards.” She shooed the marines away, and I stood next to the center console.
Captain Merton and Galina were bent over the main holotank, eyeing a life-like three dimensional image of the glorious island I’d been spending so much quality time on.
“The tribune says you have a way to penetrate this dome, McGill. Explain it to me.”
“Uh… hasn’t Graves or anyone told you about it?”
“We’re out of communication with the troops inside that dome. Radio, teleportation—it’s impervious to all that.”
I looked at Merton and managed to force a smile. He seemed stressed, but that might just have been due to Galina riding him so hard on his own bridge. That had to be humiliating to any captain in Earth’s fleet.
Using quick words that got to the point, I explained about the tunnel to the bottom of the sea, and how it seemed to go right through the dome.
“That’s interesting… but pretty much useless. We can’t go down there and run in troops, or send a lifter to that depth to gather survivors. Thanks McGill, you’re dismissed.”
Relieved, I did a spin on my boot heel. When getting out of duties, it was critical to remove yourself from sight, sound and mind as fast as possible.
Unfortunately, Galina looked up again from the holotank just as I was touching my cap to the irritable marines.
“Just a minute. What the hell were you doing down there? Why were you walking on the bottom of the ocean—again?”
“I… uh… I was following orders, sir. Graves sent me down to investigate. There were a whole lot of dogmen down there, see, and—”
“Dogmen? You mean those genetic freaks Claver has been breeding?”
“Yessir. The very same.”
Galina and Merton exchanged glances. She took three steps toward me. “McGill… do you realize this ship is in a state of emergency action?
“Sure does look like it.”
“Right… and did you chance to wonder why that is?”
“Well… I only just caught a revive, sir. I’m a bit behind on current events.”
“Not at all. I think you might be more ahead of the curve than you realize. The island is being overrun by those damned dogmen. We can’t talk to the men trapped down there, but we can still see what’s happening.”
“The island is overrun? How? Just Carlos and I must have killed a hundred or more.”
“Very commendable, but they aren’t coming from just the lab complex. They’re rushing in from a dozen spots on the island. Apparently, you only found one of the
