The Honour of the Knights (First Edition) (50 page)

“
Enrique, what’s happening?”

“
Soldiers!”

“
What?” Kelly said as he dragged her down
the corridors and back towards the morgue. She tried to stop him
pulling her in its direction, but he was holding her hand tight.
“I
’
m not
going back in there!”

“
Given the choice, I don’t think you’d prefer to be out there,
either!” Enrique answered as they continued running. Moments later,
they reached their destination.

“
Imperial soldiers!” Enrique shouted, as he and Kelly sprinted
in through the mortuary doorway.

Kelly
saw her other three companions, still standing around Barber’s
body, jerk around. Chaz was holding something small and silver. It
appeared to be a scalpel.

“
What?” Dodds said.

Enrique gave Kelly a look that said he was tired of that
question. “Imperial soldiers have just entered the port!” he
panted. “They
’
re
armed and firing on the refugees! One is coming this
way!”

“
Imperial soldiers?” Chaz said.
“You
’
re
sure?”

“
Positive,” Enrique said. “Saw them through the window. He
looked straight at me. I’m not sure if he saw me, but they
were…”

“
What are they wearing?” Chaz demanded, not waiting for
Enrique to finish.

“
Huh?”

“
Enrique,
what are they wearing
?” the big man
raised his voice.

Recovering her breath, Kelly saw something that made her feel
the most unsettled she had all day: it was the look on
Chaz
’
s face. It
was a panicked expression. The man was worried. Very
worried.

“
Black uniforms,” Enrique said. “Completely black, with these
bright red visors or eyes, and…”

“
Hide!” Chaz said, putting the scalpel down
on Barber
’
s belly, gathering up the sheet and hurling it back over her
body.

“
But, there are five of us…” Estelle started, sounding
confident that all of them would be able to handle the new
threat.

“
Believe me, Lieutenant, we should hide,” Chaz said, in a grim
voice.

Dodds
glanced around the mortuary, before turning back to Chaz
incredulously. “Where?!”

XXII

—
Dead Man Walking —

P
ushing open the last examination
room door before he came to the mortuary, the black-clad soldier
scanned the interior from the entrance, keeping his shotgun raised.
After confirming there was no immediate opposition, he stalked into
the room to carry out a closer inspection. He checked under the
examination table, up against the wall; within the wall-high
storage cabinet; and then above him, looking for air vents and
other out-of-the-way hiding places. Just like the other rooms, this
one was empty, no-one seeming to have fled in here.

He
backed out of the room, spinning around as he stepped back through
the entrance, anticipating an attack from the corridor. None came.
He then started towards the mortuary. He was confident that
somewhere in the medical unit he would find his prey. The doors to
the medical unit itself had been locked from the inside, though a
single shot to the external control panel from his pistol had been
enough to grant him access.

* * *

The
sight that greeted the soldier as he opened the door to the morgue
was nothing out of the ordinary. Six bodies, covered in sheets, lay
on gurnies lining the walls. Two were bloodstained.

Keeping
his shotgun raised, he inched through the door, halting as more
details of the inside of the mortuary came into view. Several
roused his suspicions: the first was the presence of five objects
that resembled propulsion packs, bundled into a corner next to a
locker; the second, a small pile of random items, including two
pairs of boots and socks, stuffed under one of the bloodstained
gurnies; and the third, a round reflective object, resting under
another. It looked like a flight helmet. Still, he saw
no-one.

He turned his attention to the bodies on the gurnies, moving
to the one with the many items deposited beneath it; the one
closest to the door. He reached down and snatched aside the linen
cover, momentarily distracted by a tinkling sound as he did so.
Discovering the source of the noise to be nothing more than a small
surgical instrument, he trained his weapon back on the body on the
trolley. The woman
’
s eyes were closed, her skin pale. Her face seemed to lack
warmth. He studied her for a moment, searching for signs of life,
before then nudging the face with the barrel of his gun. There was
no reaction; the woman was indeed dead. Even so, he would check the
others. He circled around the woman
’
s gurney, coming to stand by the
next in the row. Shotgun still poised, he extended a hand to remove
the pure white sheet…

A
bumping from a locker at the far end caused him to swing around and
he returned his outstretched hand to beneath the shotgun, steadying
it in preparation to tackle the threat. The sound appeared to have
come from the same locker the propulsion packs had been dumped next
to. The locker, however, now stood still and silent. He nonetheless
watched it closely. Moments later, there was another sudden bumping
sound, followed by a soft groaning.

He paced
forward, keeping his weapon trained on the locker the whole time,
ready to counter any attack that might come from within. He took up
a ready position in front of the door and flung it open, his hand
flying back to steady his shotgun as he saw the figure hiding
within lunge forward to attack him.

He
discharged the shotgun at point-blank range, sending the man back
into the locker from whence he came. The man crumpled down like a
puppet that had just had its strings cut, stiff limbs dropping. The
soldier kept his eyes on the man, preparing to fire once more if
there was another attempt to attack him, or if the first shot had
not done its job of downing his opponent.

But the man made no further movements, and the soldier bent
down over the body to examine it. Like that of the woman he had
seen lying on the gurney, the man
’
s skin was pale and there were no
signs of respiration, the blank eyes already staring ahead. He
realised that his attacker had been dead all along, and that he had
just shot a corpse. With the deception uncovered, he rose and
turned back just in time to face a new attacker.

* * *

Dodds lunged for the shotgun the black-suited invader still
held tight in one hand, attempting to disarm him, just as the
soldier made to fire the weapon once more. With the element of
surprise on his side, Dodds succeeded in directing the shotgun into
the air, where it discharged harmlessly into the ceiling. This it
did several more times as the pair tussled, before the soldier
responded to Dodds
’
attempt to separate him from his weapon by releasing his grip
on the shotgun and catching the young pilot with a powerful swing
of his fist across the face.

Dodds
fell to the ground, disorientated by the blow, his vision filling
with stars. As he tried to make sense of his world, he heard a
short, sharp click, followed by the clatter of several spent shell
cases bouncing on the floor close to him. The soldier had begun
reloading his weapon, the rapid clicking of fresh shells slotting
into place making clear warnings of what was to come.

Dodds
was just starting to his feet when he heard the soldier load the
seventh and final shell, snap the gun shut, and then cock it. Time
seemed to slow. He looked up into the bright red eyes of the eerie
black helmet as the shotgun was swung in his direction. A moment
later, he found himself staring down the barrel.

He heard
a bang, followed by a grunt. The shotgun fell away and the soldier
stumbled backward. Three further explosions followed, accompanied
by a number of cries of pain from behind the black helmet, before
the solider fell backward and crashed down onto the floor. Dodds
saw blood glistening on the black suit as it began to pour from
wounds and onto the floor, creating a small pool. Despite
appearances otherwise, the soldier was clearly not wearing any form
of body armour, and the suit had provided him with little
protection.

Dodds looked around to see Estelle, panting and steadying a
pistol in both hands. He recognised it as the gun that had belonged
to Barber and remembered Chaz removing it from its holster inside
the woman
’
s
jacket, during his search for the data card. Estelle must have
picked it up during the scramble to hide. She looked down at him as
the others emerged from their hurried and uninspiring hiding
places. Her eyes held a mixture of feelings; his, only an
apology.

* * *

As Enrique had relayed the warning of the
soldier
’
s
impending arrival to the mortuary, the
Knights
had wrenched off their
propulsion packs and hidden beneath the sheets of the spare
gurnies, feigning their own deaths. Their packs had been thrown
into a corner, next to a locker, and each of their flight helmets
dropped under their respective gurnies. There had only been four
empty trolleys, and Chaz had pulled the raider
’
s body off his table and pushed him
into the locker. Though there had been no time to hide any evidence
of their recent activities, Dodds, Estelle, Kelly and Enrique had
hoped that the soldier would take one look around and then leave;
though, from his behaviour, Chaz seemed to have expected otherwise.
Their saving grace had come in the form of the raider Chaz had put
in the locker. His hurried bundling of the man
’
s body into the storage cabinet had
resulted in it crumpling down, knocking against the insides as it
did so. The soldier had gone on to mistake the
corpse
’
s sliding
for someone trying to hide themselves away.

* * *

“
We
’
ve got to get out of here,” Chaz
said, throwing off his sheet. He glanced in the direction of the
fallen soldier lying still on the floor, on top of the body of the
raider. He hesitated, for a time caught up an internal debate as to
which task he should be attending to first. He then headed back
over to the gurney on which Barber
’
s body rested, snatching up the
scalpel from where it lay on the floor as he went.

The jacket already undone, he used the scalpel to cut apart
Barber
’
s
bloodstained vest, but stopped short of cutting into her flesh. He
once again stared down at Barber
’
s smooth white skin, finding it too
hard to carry through the task laid before him. He felt how cold
she was as his fingers brushed her stomach.

“
Chaz,” Estelle started again, fiddling
with the pistol she still held. “If you
can
’
t do
it…”

“
I can. Just give me a second,” he answered.

“
… I can do it instead,” Estelle finished.

“
I SAID GIVE ME A DAMN
SECOND!
” Chaz shouted back in frustration
at his pending task. He stood breathing for a while, concentrating
hard and searching for the will to begin. After just a few seconds
of mental preparation, he found it and immediately plunged the
scalpel into Barber
’
s belly. He began cutting downwards, working fast and making
jagged sawing actions with the blade as he went. The world around
him seemed to disappear. He heard nothing and saw nothing but the
knife; almost slipping into a trance.

“
I
’
m sorry,” he said under his breath.
“I’m so sorry.”

* * *

“
Hey, you okay?” Enrique asked as Dodds struggled to his
feet.

“
Yeah,” Dodds said, even though he was not so sure.

“
Your face is really bruised,” Kelly said.

Dodds
touched the side of his face, feeling it hot and a little swollen.
The power of the blow had been tremendous and he found himself
amazed that the force had bowled him over. He was counting himself
lucky that he had not been knocked out. He recalled during his
struggle with the soldier over the shotgun that his feet had almost
been lifted off the floor.

He looked over to where Estelle and Chaz were standing over
the gurney. Chaz’s hands were already covered in blood and, though
she was overseeing the task, he could tell that Estelle was
fighting the urge to turn away. Chaz
’
s eyes appeared to be glazed over
as he drove the knife deeper.

Dodds found himself compelled to investigate his opponent and
wandered over to the soldier
’
s unmoving body. The man still held
the shotgun in one hand and Dodds kicked it away before he squatted
down. He noted that the soldier’s suit, which he had originally
mistaken to have been a construct of ceramics, was in fact composed
of little else but leather. It was thicker in some areas than
others, extra smooth, hardened padding on the shoulders, elbows,
kneecaps and other parts of the body, giving the impression of
armour plating. The texture varied in places, most often around
where one part of the plates joined to another, as well as around
joints.