Gunmetal Dark
By Angelina Vansen (angelina@gunmetaldark.com)

RATING: NC-17 (yes, this part is!)
CODES: J/7 uber
SUMMARY: Chapter 4 of my J/7 uber sci-fi. In this part, we go back to Dr. Kaine Sigg (Janeway) as she uncovers the truth about why she has been abducted. You should read this from the beginning though.


Chapter 4.

Kaine woke to the sound of boots in the corridor. She had slept deeply, the sleep of a body that needed to heal, though it had been punctuated with wild, directionless dreams.

She sat up on the bed as the lock on the wall beeped, the lights on it going out one by one. In his chair, Timon stiffened and looked at her. The door opened and the soldiers stood to attention.

There were three soldiers this time, now without body armour and camouflage paint. They were still armed.

"The Colonel wants to see you now," one of them, whose stitched name tag identified him as Gant, said.

Kaine struggled up, pleased to find that the short sleep had done her some good. She didn't feel so shaky or weak, and the feeling in her extremities had returned. She stood quite steadily.

Timon got up too, putting himself protectively in front of her.

"What does this Colonel want with us?" he asked Gant.

"Not you," Gant replied. "Just the Doctor."

Kaine took an audible breath. Timon had been right; she was the purpose of this operation.

"She's not going anywhere alone," Timon told them.

Gant sighed. "Don't be stupid," he said wearily. "We're under orders to kill you if you make any trouble, okay?"

"It's all right," Kaine said, moving out from behind Timon. She looked at him with pleading eyes, trying to show him she remembered what he had told her. Cooperate. Survive until they were rescued. It was all they could do.

"Thank you," said Gant brusquely. "Let's not keep the Colonel waiting."

She nodded in agreement and followed the soldiers out of the cell. She didn't look back at Timon as she went, worried that her resolve may crack. She had no idea what to expect from this Colonel, but she wanted to show that she wasn't intimidated.

The soldiers locked the cell behind her, and they marched along the corridor without a word.

Once again, she was marched past the doors marked

HOST

and

GUEST

and felt the familiar tickle of the Network against her deadened ports. It was reaching out to her, calling her like a siren. Despite the fact she couldn't connect, the frying had clearly not affected her Mainstem. If only she could get a nanokit and see inside her Augbrain, see the damage. Maybe ...

But she had heard of people who had been fried before. The results had never been good. If she wanted to t-sync again, she was probably looking at invasive surgery, a specialist team, a high risk of death or brain damage. Putting an Augbrain in place was one thing. Removing or replacing it once it was damaged was quite another.

No, she had to face the fact that her career, at the very least, was over. She was no good to anyone if she couldn't t-sync. What a sickening waste, she thought, pensioned off at the age of only forty. And that was if she got out of here alive.

For the first time since this started, Kaine felt something more than fear towards her kidnappers. She felt anger.

The Colonel's office was at the other end of the corridor, only slightly further than they had been marched that morning. Kaine suspected that there wasn't that much more to this underground base than she had seen so far: vehicle hangar, cell, computer rooms, offices.

Gant knocked at the door three times and waited. There was a sign on it:

COLONEL S. FILER
Unit Commander

Above the door, a light changed from red to green and Gant pushed it open. Kaine was led inside, still flanked by her escorts.

The Colonel's office was dark and not large, though it had a wall that was a holographic projection of some kind. Instantly, Kaine's Mainstem receptors picked up on the electric buzz.

The Colonel herself stood behind the desk, back straight, palms down. She was a woman in her thirties, tall with straight dark hair and dark, intense eyes. She wore what had to be the most precisely cut Citizen uniform Kaine had ever seen. Its sharp lines were crisp and menacing where on other soldiers they seemed soft and loose. It was a subtly darker shade than she had seen before, too.

The Colonel walked out from behind her desk and looked Kaine up and down. She seemed to be assessing her. A slight wrinkle in her nose suggested she found Kaine wanting.

"Dismissed," she said to her soldiers. Her voice was low and quite soft, but carried an undertone of steel.

Gant and his men obeyed without a word.

The Colonel walked very slowly back around her desk to sit in her chair. She looked thoughtful, steepling her fingers in front of her. There wasn't another chair in the room and she did not invite Kaine to sit down.

Kaine decided she wasn't going to fall for this silent intimidation. "Are you Colonel Filer?" she demanded. The strength and power of her own voice in the small room surprised her.

Did it surprise the Colonel too? Her mouth showed the trace of an amused smile as she sat back to regard Kaine a little more.

"Yes I am," she replied.

"Good," Kaine continued in that same strong voice. "I wish to report a violation by the soldiers under your command. The terms of the Madatta Treaty clearly state that it is illegal, even in times of war, to tamper with an augmented human brain. And yet your soldiers used a pulse device to overload my Mainstem and destroy my ports!"

Kaine's anger surprised even her. This woman was dangerous; an enemy commander who had kidnapped her and summoned her for an undisclosed purpose. She should be terrified, but instead here she was, dressing her down in her own office.

The Colonel didn't seem too concerned. Again, an amused smile twisted on her lips.

"Did they?" she smirked. It was like she was talking about some naughty schoolboys playing truant.

"Yes!" Kaine yelled. "As their commanding officer, you are directly responsible for their actions, and I want you to know that there is no way that I or Tenkatech will let you get away with a war crime of that magnitude."

The Colonel pulled a face of exaggerated regret, sucking a breath through her teeth like a wince. "I am sorry for the ... "violation", Doctor, I really am. But I couldn't have you t-syncing in my lab, could I. You're a clever woman, and you'd be far too difficult to keep track of."

"They destroyed my Augbrain!" Kaine fumed. The woman was acting as if they'd done nothing more than step on her foot. "They're damn lucky they didn't brain damage me!"

"Yes, that would have been a pity," the Colonel concurred. "But my soldiers are well trained. They know what they're doing with pulse devices."

"They're trained to fry people?!" Kaine gasped. "But ... it's a war crime!"

"Well, Doctor ... we're not really a part of the Citizen army."

"No?" Kaine asked warily. That caught her by surprise.

"No," the Colonel continued. "We're Three Stars. Do you know what that is?"

Kaine did. She lived on a military base after all. She shared her bed with a General. Colonel Filer and her men were secret service, black ops. Plausible deniability.

She nodded slowly. So that was it. Rules governing their fair treatment did not apply because The Citizen government would label their kidnappers as terrorists if they were caught.

That was a sobering thought. Timon's words rang in her ears once more. Cooperate. Survive. Wait for rescue. As hopeless as that seemed right now, he was right. It was the best tactic.

"What do you want with us?" she asked.

Bizarrely, the Colonel was still smiling that regretful smile, mouth turned down at the corners and lips pinched. Kaine tried to read it, analyse it, wanting to get some kind of handle on this woman's mind.

The Colonel stepped right up to Kaine, in her personal space, and cupped the Doctor's face in both her hands like she was about to kiss her. Kaine tried to pull away but there was nowhere to go. She was pressed against the desk.

The Colonel was so close she felt her breath on her cheek as she whispered, "Just some help, Doctor. I just need a little help."

There she stood, centimetres from Kaine, cradling her face and looking deep into her eyes. It was odd, it was unnerving, it was insane.

Kaine trembled, wanting to rip herself free and run. Colonel Filer's hands were warm, almost a caress, yet that whispered plea held so much menace.

"Wh-what ... how can I possibly help you?" she stammered.

The Colonel tilted her head to one side, affecting a face of pity and sympathy, though it was doubtful she felt either. Her left thumb stroked across Kaine's cheekbone as if to wipe away a tear. The Colonel bit her own lip almost coyly.

"Well, first I need information," she murmured, almost into Kaine's mouth.

"About what?" Kaine whispered back.

The Colonel's lips parted and she moved even closer. The moisture of her breath ghosted over Kaine's lips. "Project MIA," she whispered.

A sickening sweat broke out on Kaine's body. She had absolutely no idea what Project MIA was.

"Listen to me," she said, looking the Colonel in the eyes and hoping she would be able to see the truth in her gaze. "I don't know what that is. I really don't. I am not involved in any project by that name and I never have been. You have the wrong person."

She was taking great panicky lungfuls of air, every muscle in her body trying to twist out of that awful, intimate embrace.

Colonel Filer continued to hold her, still wearing that pained expression.

"Oh Doctor," she sighed. "I don't think I believe you."

"You have to. Really. I would cooperate with you if I knew something, but I don't!"

Mercifully, the Colonel let go of Kaine and moved away. She took a slow pace around her office, head bowed and looking thoughtful.

After she had completed a lap she stopped about a metre from Kaine. She stood there looking at her for a long moment, as if evaluating her.

"Would you like to know why I don't believe you?" she asked.

Kaine nodded. She really did.

"Because I know who you are and what you did," the Colonel continued in an icy voice. "Tenkatech employee records are not hard to get into, even for poor uncivilised technophobes like us."

"Then you should know I haven't worked on any Project MIA," argued Kaine. "I'm not lying to you, I've never even heard of it!"

"I know you're not assigned to Project MIA," the Colonel said soothingly. "It's not really your thing, is it? You're generally assigned to positions where you get to dream up new ways to maim and kill our army. Correct?"

Kaine sighed. "I suppose so," she said. That was not something she was ashamed of. They were at war, after all.

"You're very good at your job, aren't you Doctor," the Colonel said in a smoky voice. She was moving closer again, getting more intimate. "I wouldn't say this in front of my superiors, but I think you've won the war for Tenkatech all by yourself."

"What do you mean?" Kaine asked, incredulous.

"I mean the Softsuit," the Colonel breathed.

There was a horrible, long silence then, the two of them looking into each other's eyes.

"Congratulations, Doctor," Colonel Filer continued. "That is some accomplishment. The perfect synergy between human and machine, between soldier and weapon, lab and battlefield. My God, the thing's brilliant. It's wiping us out. Did you know we haven't won a single battle where the Softsuit's been deployed?"

Kaine did, but she kept silent.

"There have barely been any survivors. You should feel very, very proud, Doctor."

"It was just an assignment," Kaine told her, and it was true. Battles meant little to her in the clean, comforting space of her lab, and she never thought of the human cost. It simply wasn't her job.

"Just an assignment?" queried the Colonel. "I don't think that's quite the truth. You had the idea, you designed it, and you went to the military to beg for funding. You oversaw the entire project. Why do you think I sought you out for help with Project MIA?"

That, unfortunately, was still a mystery. "I really don't know," said Kaine, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. "I'm assigned to the Dharma Grid at the moment, I'm improving network lag times between wired and t-sync connections. That's all!"

"I know about your current assignment," the Colonel dismissed with a wave of her hand.

"Then why do you think I know anything at all about this Project MIA?" Kaine demanded.

Colonel Filer stepped close again, as if she were about to whisper a secret. "Because I know you've been advising them," she breathed.

"No, I haven't ..." she insisted, but then, something clicked.

The Colonel nodded, slowly. "Three weeks ago, you went to Quintin Base, didn't you. You had a fleshmeeting with Dr. Honn and Dr. Kidder."

A lump formed in Kaine's throat that she couldn't seem to swallow. She had thought it strange at the time that Honn and Kidder had requested a fleshmeeting; they were usually reserved for situations where top security was required.

"Yes," she confirmed. "I did. I went there and I met with them, that's not a secret. They run the lab where the softsuit is fitted and they wanted some advice on how to change the flow rate of the Mainstem t-sync connectors. That's why I went. I advised them, we drew up some specs, and that was it. I was there five days. Which you probably already know."

"Yes, I do," Colonel Filer concurred.

"I take it that Honn and Kidder have something to do with Project MIA," said Kaine.

"Yes," agreed the Colonel. "In fact they're the project heads."

"Then why come to me?" Kaine pleaded. "I really don't know what they're working on, I have very little to do with the Softsuit now."

"You're being modest again I think. Why did Honn and Kidder request your help? Why did they ask for a fleshmeeting? So they could have access to your remarkable brain, I think. Because they know, as I do, that when it comes to the Softsuit, you are the woman with the answers."

"I don't know what Project MIA is!" Kaine barked, surprising even herself. "It's pointless trying to intimidate me into helping you, because I can't!"

The Colonel laughed. "Nobody's trying to intimidate you, Doctor," she said. "Calm down."

But Kaine didn't feel like calming down. She shook with fear and rage. "You've got to be kidding!" she shouted again. "You've kidnapped me, fried me, imprisoned me, interrogated me, and you expect me not to feel intimidated?!"

The Colonel hit her. Kaine didn't see it coming, didn't have a chance to react. The Colonel just stepped forward and backhanded her across the cheek, hard enough to make her see stars.

"That's intimidation," she hissed in a voice that was utterly devoid of humanity.

Shocked as hell, Kaine clutched her cheek as she tried to blink away the tears that sprung to her eyes. She turned to look at her assailant, open mouthed. She had never been hit before, never once in her life. She didn't know how to react. Plus, it hurt like hell.

"Next time, I call one of my soldiers in here to do that," the Colonel warned.

The Colonel shook her head and walked to the other side of the room, her back to Kaine.

"You can order him to beat me to death if you like," Kaine spat. "It won't change the fact that I don't know anything."

There was a long silence then, as Colonel Filer leaned against a filestore, still with her back to Kaine.

"Tell me," said the Colonel, her voice gentle again. "What was the Softsuit built for?"

"Combat?" Kaine replied uncertainly. She wasn't sure she understood. It was hard to think with her cheekbone throbbing hotly.

"Yes, combat," the Colonel agreed, thankfully. "It's a whole-body weapon worn by a greatly augmented trooper, correct?"

"Yes," Kaine agreed, still unsure where this was going.

"Tenkatech troopers?"

Kaine looked at her incredulously. "Of ... of course!"

"Do you really have no idea what's happening with your own invention?!" the Colonel snapped.

"No, I don't," Kaine told her firmly. "I am no longer assigned to it; I have nothing at all to do with it except in an advisory capacity. Why don't you just tell me what this is about?"

The Colonel looked thoughtful for a moment, and when she spoke again her voice was quiet and introspective. She gazed at the opposite wall as if seeing something there. "Have you ever seen your invention in battle, Doctor?" she asked.

Kaine shook her head. She'd seen prototypes in action, simulations. She'd read detailed eyes-only reports on the early battles, but been there herself? Never.

"That's a pity," the Colonel cooed. "It's quite a sight. I was there when Tenkatech made the incursion into Gate's Crossing. Seven hundred Softsuited troops, you know. And they all moved as one, swarming over the white land like locusts. I don't mind admitting I was scared."

For a moment, the Colonel looked lost, staring wide-eyed into her memory. One of her hands held the edge of the desk, went tight and white at the knuckles.

"That was a year ago," she continued. "I was a Major then. Seven hundred of them, against almost two thousand Citizens, and they just simply destroyed us. I knew, as I watched them, that the war was over, that we were going to lose. They killed everything in their path and it was over so quickly. They were absolutely unstoppable."

Kaine watched the Colonel marvelling over the Softsuit and wondered how she was supposed to feel. Proud perhaps? Perhaps ashamed? She felt neither.

"But you know the problem with the Softsuit, Doctor? Or are you going to play dumb on that one, too?"

"Well, it's expensive to manufacture and maintain," Kaine offered.

"No, not that problem. Although I'm sure that's given Honn and Kidder some nightmares along the way."

"We had some problems with the weight distribution of the hip battery," Kaine tried.

"Recruitment," the Colonel interrupted.

"Recruitment?" Kaine asked. She didn't follow.

"Yes. Didn't your feasibility studies anticipate it? There haven't been many volunteers to your cause Doctor, not even from the brainwashed Tenkatech military machine."

"Really?" Kaine asked. This was genuinely news to her.

"Hmm. I'm not surprised they kept it quiet. Not good propaganda. I think it's the level of augmentation. An Augbrain and some ports are one thing, but to get in the Softsuit you need a lot of work, don't you."

Kaine nodded.

"Well, there haven't been many takers. Not enough to take over the world, anyway. I think Gate's Crossing was pretty much the full Softsuit army."

"Seven hundred?" Kaine asked. "No ... we've used more than that in battle, lots more. Thousands, on the moons ..."

"Mmm ..." said the Colonel, directing her gaze back at Kaine. She stared hard at her, an uncomfortable stare that felt like an examination. "They're not exactly what you'd call volunteers, though."

"What do you mean?" Kaine demanded. The Tenkatech military was strictly voluntary. They were a professional army, and they fought like one. She'd always been proud of that.

The Colonel walked back behind her desk, and opened a drawer. She pulled out a crystal decanter and two glasses. She poured Kaine a measure of something rich and brown and alcoholic and handed it to her before sitting back down behind the desk with her own.

Kaine sniffed it before tasting it, but didn't recognise it. How bizarre, having a drink with her old friend the Colonel.

"After Gate's Crossing," Filer continued in a mesmerising voice, "there was a lull in Softsuit activity. We couldn't understand it. Tenkatech had the tools to beat us, and they weren't using them. What we didn't realise was that they were a limited resource. But they were already in the process of overcoming that. They, Honn and Kidder, were developing Project MIA."

"I really don't know what that is, you know," Kaine said in a soft voice over the warmth and comfort of her glass.

"Project MIA is the continuation of the Softsuit," the Colonel told her. "It's a new lease of life." Then she laughed, as if at some private joke. "Literally," she smirked.

"I don't understand."

"They have a new source of troopers, Doctor. Thousands of them, an ever-increasing supply. In fact, the more they have of them, the more they can get."

This was still too cryptic for Kaine. She shook her head.

The Colonel sighed. "They're dead bodies, Doctor," she said. "They've been using the dead."

Kaine's heart stopped beating and she forgot to breathe. Suddenly the alcohol in her blood made her feel woozy and sick. There was an awful moment of silence. "What?" she managed to gasp.

"Dead bodies, Doctor. Something there's rather a lot of in war. Cheap and easy I guess, and you don't have to press-gang them into being augmented, either."

"But that's ridiculous!" Kaine cried.

"Oh, you think so?" said the Colonel. "Well, I've seen it. At the end of the battle, the Softsuits are under orders to pick up a corpse from the battlefield and take it back with them. One each."

"That's the craziest thing I've ever heard," Kaine mocked. "What good would that be? A dead body? The suit's not a ... a reanimation machine, it's ... it's an augmentation."

"It's a little of both now, thanks to Honn and Kidder's tinkering. What's the matter, Doctor, are you jealous you didn't think of it?"

"It can't be done!" Kaine insisted.

"Oh, it can," the Colonel breathed, that dangerous look on her face again. "It's done hundreds of times every day. Delta ships filled with them take off from launchfields all over the planet."

"They're troops!" Kaine argued bitterly, putting her glass back on the desk in case she was tempted to throw it. "Tenkatech troops!"

"That's another place where you're very, very wrong," the Colonel whispered bitterly. Her voice was low but it shook with barely suppressed emotion. "They don't take their own bodies. Not Tenkatech's. Oh no, those get returned to grieving relatives. These days, Doctor, your Softsuits are worn by Citizens."

"No ..." Kaine said.

"Yes," Colonel Filer insisted. "Oh yes. I could tell you stories ... a woman meeting her own brother in battle, operatives missing ... mysterious "defections". We know what's going on. All of them ... Project MIA. Missing In Action."

"No," Kaine said again. "It's not possible. You don't understand how the Softsuit works, there's no way it can do something like that ..."

"It has an internal Augbrain now that runs the trooper. But you're right. I don't fully understand. That's why I need you."

"What?"

"I need you to show me how they do it."

"But I don't know ... it's crazy! Completely impossible. The Softsuit is an augmentation; armour, weaponry ... a technical database. Not a ... a zombie maker. Your intelligence is way off the mark!"

"Taking the enemy's dead off the battlefield and using them to fight your war is insane," the Colonel said coldly. "I want you to help me stop that."

"But I can't!" Kaine cried.

"I think you can," replied the Colonel. "And you're going to try, because I want our people out of those Softsuits, I want them returned to their families. You complain about my soldiers frying your Augbrain, you say that's a war crime? This is a war crime, Doctor. Your invention is the cause of the worst war crime in history. It's so bad even the Citizens are covering it up."

Kaine shook her head defiantly. "I'm not going to listen to this," she said. "I don't know what you really want, but feeding me this kind of insanity is not going to help you get it!"

"Don't worry," snorted Colonel Filer. "I have no intention of standing here trying to persuade you with words."

That worried Kaine. "What do you mean?" she asked, suddenly deeply afraid. Something in the Colonel's tone ...

Filer stood up behind her desk and hit some buttons on the interface above the drawer. Suddenly, the wall to Kaine's right, the one she had suspected was holographic, shimmered and disappeared.

Without it, the Colonel's office was twice as big, and much brighter. As Kaine turned towards it, she noticed the added section had a tiled floor that was sloped slightly towards a drain in the middle. For blood! Her legs went weak.

To the left, on a wooden chair, Timon was tied. Timon. His eyes met hers, dark and wide, and she noticed the fear in them before she noticed the bruises on his face, ugly, purple and swollen. He was flanked by two of the Colonel's men.

She tried to run to him, a burst of protective instinct making her want to take him in her arms, but the soldiers aimed their guns at her head and told her to stay where she was.

"I'm okay," he said to her. "Don't worry, I'm fine. Whatever they want you to do, just do it ..."

His voice was weak and strained and she saw blood on his tongue, dark and fresh. In his mouth.

"What the hell have you done?!" Kaine screamed, turning back to the Colonel. "Don't you know who he is?!"

"He's General Menendez," replied the Colonel mockingly. "Base commander, Tenkatech hero and your secret lover."

"They're not going to rest till they find him, you know. They'll track you down ..."

"Then you had better work fast, Doctor. Because if I get so much as a sniff of Tenkatech near my bunker I'm going to put a bullet in your head."

"Kaine ..." he urged. "It's okay, be strong."

All she wanted was to go back to the base with him, back home to their lives of work and snatched moments. Yesterday it had seemed like an exciting life; forbidden and dangerous. Now it seemed wonderfully mundane.

"I don't even know what they want me to do ..." she sobbed.

The Colonel grabbed Kaine by the chin and wrenched her face around so the two of them locked eyes. Her fingers dug painfully into Kaine's jaw.

"I want you to show me how to get my people out of the Softsuits," she hissed into Kaine's face. "Alive."

"But you said they were ..."

"They're alive enough for Tenkatech's purposes. They pick the ones with no brainstem injuries."

"All right I'll try," Kaine wept. "But I swear I didn't know about any of this and I don't know how they do it."

The Colonel released her. "Well done," she said. "I have a lab prepared for you."

She turned away, a strange smile starting to show at the corners of her mouth.

"I guess all we need now is a trooper," she said in a voice that made Kaine worry.

"What do you mean?" she asked the Colonel.

"Well, I have a Softsuit," the Colonel replied. She crossed the room to a polished black end table. "All we need is a dead trooper to wear it."

Kaine watched in horror as the Colonel opened a drawer in the end table and pulled out a loaded pulse syringe. She smiled unpleasantly.

"No ..." gasped Kaine. "No, please ... please don't do that ..."

Timon, who could not see what the Colonel had in her hand, twisted desperately in his chair nonetheless, struggling with his bindings.

"I just want to make sure you're properly motivated, Doctor," the Colonel explained as she drew closer to Timon with the syringe.

"I'm motivated," Kaine pleaded. "I am. I'll work for you, I'll show you everything, I'll help you in any way you want, I swear I will. Please, don't!"

"I'm sorry, Doctor, it's the only way."

She pushed the syringe to Timon's neck and pressed the trigger. No emotion, no humanity. The device clicked and Timon grunted, once.

His eyes widened and he didn't seem able to catch his breath. He looked at Kaine, locked eyes with her as he gasped, a horrible wheezing coming from his throat. There was foam in his mouth and he started choking on it.

"No ..." begged Kaine. "No, please, stop this, you can't do this, please no!"

The Colonel ignored her. No one moved as Timon spasmed in his chair, feet scrabbling madly against the floor and ghastly gurgling sounds came from his throat. His eyes glazed, livid and yellow, still somehow holding Kaine's.

She wanted to run to him but she didn't. She was scared, paralysed, horrified. She kept expecting the Colonel to stop it, inject him with the antidote and say she had merely been bluffing to scare them, but it didn't happen.

Still twitching, Timon slumped in his chair, his head dropping forward so thankfully she didn't have to see his mad, agonised eyes.

Dead. He was dead. The Colonel had killed him. Kaine stared open mouthed, not believing it. Heart pounding, guts churning. Dizzy and sick and faint.

The Colonel put down the syringe and felt Timon's neck for a pulse. She shook her head.

"There we go," she said cheerily.

He couldn't be dead, he couldn't be. The Colonel was bluffing, she'd just tranquilised him or stunned him, or put him in a coma. She looked frantically for any sign of life, a twitch of muscle or a movement of his chest to show that he was still breathing. But there was nothing. Nothing. Just the Colonel, standing over him with that happy smile on her face.

Kaine flew at her. Not caring about the guards or the guns or the fact that she was deep underground in enemy territory. She wanted to kill.

She almost reached her. She got close enough to get her nails into the collar of that sharply pressed uniform before she was tackled by a soldier.

He pulled her off, kicking and yelling, and threw her to the floor on her backside. He lifted his gun so the barrel was right in her face. Reminding her.

"Don't be stupid," he growled.

She panted on the floor, wanting to hurt the Colonel, wanting to rip her eyes out and tear her flesh.

The Colonel came over to stand above her, one of the bright ceiling lights directly above her, framing her head like a halo and throwing her face into darkest shadow.

"You can save him, Doctor," she whispered in that same quiet voice. "If anyone can do it, you can."

Kaine said nothing. She was beyond words.

The Colonel spoke to her soldiers. "Get his body to the lab," she commanded. "Prep the Softsuit, I want to begin in two hours. Take Doctor Sigg back to her cell and let her clean up. She's got a busy day ahead of her."

The soldier grabbed Kaine forcefully and dragged her to her feet.

The last thing she saw as he led her out was the Colonel, smiling slightly at her.


NOW CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 5!


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