Recon Marines II: Marine's Heiress, The (13 page)

Emma only had Vin rolled partway over
when Billy wiggled free. The little boy leaped to his feet,
unscathed though spots of bright blood soiled his
clothing.

Vin groaned, blinking his eyes a few
times before they stayed open. At least two rounds had passed
entirely through him. How many more had jiggered through his body
and stayed inside him? He still held his pistol in one hand and
sought to cover his wounds with his other. “Is the boy all
right?”

Emma nodded, trying to use her hands to
staunch the blood flowing from his side. Her tears ran nearly as
fast. She shouted around her sobs for help but everyone seemed busy
grabbing the children and running for cover. “Help! Someone help
me!”

“
Nobody else is injured?”
Vin gasped.”

“
No, you saved the
children.” Emma wasn’t used to treating battlefield injuries.
Should she run for her supplies or stay with Vin? Should she treat
him on the spot or have him carried into her surgery? She hadn’t
even gotten to know him yet, hadn’t helped him, hadn’t even kissed
him.

Vin covered her hand with his
blood-covered one. “This is who I am, Doctor Emma. I’m the body
that stands between civilians and the bullets. It’s what I was made
for.” His hand dropped away along with his
consciousness.

“
No, Vin, you’re more than
a shield.” But he was beyond her hearing.

Chapter Eight

The shooting and screams brought the
men running back from the river. Emma wrapped some loose bandaging
around Vin’s torso before she allowed them to move him. As Moe and
Vannie lifted Vin, blood dripped from his body and splashed into
the crimson puddle pooled beneath his body.

Emma wished Vin would cry out in pain
or flinch as she examined his wounds on her surgery table. Her
friends helped strip away Vin’s blood saturated clothing, all of it
ruined beyond cleaning. For a space of a few breaths, they all
stared at his perfectly sculpted body, now marred by oozing wounds.
She shook away her awe and started the intravenous feeding
artificial blood and liquid nutrients into his veins.

She gathered what she needed from the
fresh supplies Vin had delivered to her less than a day before. Her
professional distance faltered as she recalled his strong hands
carrying the supplies into her office and the way he hesitated as
if to witness her joy at the bounty.

“
Emma?” Moe asked. “Are
you okay doing this?”

She wasn’t but he would die if she
didn’t. “I’ll need you two to help me.”

Vannie and Moe stayed with her for the
entire four hours she needed to suture the wounds. She removed two
small metal projectiles from Vin’s back, one stopped by his scapula
and the other turned aside by a rib. The rounds that had passed
through his body had missed his heart and lungs, nipping the edge
of his stomach.

The stomach wound worried her the most
as she cleaned the area and then cleaned it again. Infection from
such wounds killed as easily as blood loss but in a longer, more
painful manner. After that she sealed the wound with the organic
compound that would stop bleeding and stay in place until skin grew
under it. Not even a scar would be left.

“
You’ve done all you can,
lass.” Vannie rubbed his back and started for the door. “I’m going
to have the men drag those drones into Vin’s shop. Might be he can
tell us where they came from when he wakes up.”

Moe helped Emma clean and put away her
instruments. “Let me get you something to eat and drink, Emma
darling. We’ll not open the café tonight.”

After Moe left, Emma pulled a stool up
beside the surgery table, fatigue crawling up her legs and into her
back and neck. Performing surgery on Vin had drained her more than
anything she’d ever done. Tears built behind her eyes as she stared
down at Vin’s inert body. Even swathed in bandages, he commanded a
powerful presence. Too powerful to die from mere gunshot. But his
last statement haunted her as she sat there holding his
hand.

People don’t lie while their life
poured from their body into the dirt. The truth as Vin knew it was
that he’d been created to shield civilians with his body. Would he
drift away now because he believed his duties fulfilled? She
squeezed his hand, willing him to live.

Moe returned with a carafe of cool
juice and a plate of cold moose cuts topping thin slices of
yesterday’s bread.

Emma tried to eat but food stuck in her
throat. Moe didn’t push her.

“
Anyone else hurt?” Emma
should have asked before but hadn’t thought beyond saving
Vin.

“
A few splinters from the
shots hitting the buildings but nothing serious.” Moe put his
sandwich down also. “I look at this full grown man shot full of
holes and can’t help imagining what those drones would have done to
the children playing in the street if Vin hadn’t been
there.”

“
Billy would have been
killed for sure. The other children wouldn’t have run until too
late.” Emma shivered, seeing Billy running toward the miniature
planes in his panic.

Moe tucked the blanket around Vin’s
shoulders though Emma had already done it twice. “I’ve lost track
of the times the lad saved us.”

Emma busied herself by touching the
monitor screen of the device keeping track of Vin’s vital signs.
Moe would have too many questions if she cried. It indicated only a
slightly elevated temperature, not unusual after an injury. But
infection might already grow inside him somewhere, ready to spread
and flourish. “Can you sit with him for a bit, Moe? I’m going to
check Vin’s medicinal supplies. He gave me a powerful antibiotic
for Russ. I’d feel better if I could give it to Vin.”

Moe shooed her toward the door,
returning to his meal.

Emma invaded Vin’s living quarters with
only a little bit of guilt. Nothing had changed, everything in its
neat little spot. The simple blanket stretched tautly across the
narrow cot, making it impossible for her to imagine Vin curled up
asleep in it. Her curiosity urged her to linger over his things,
learn a little more about him, but her worry drove her to a shelf
above a small, humming refrigerator. The neat rows and stack of
medical supplies made it easy to find the Fusomycle antibiotic. He
had five doses of the expensive medicine.

She only took one dose of the Fusomycle
and turned to leave. But her gaze snagged on a rectangular device
on the tiny desk squared up with the far corner of the loft room.
The newest interstellar communicators were rarer than the drugs Vin
had in such enviable supply. Hovel Port had no means to keep up
with the news of the greater universe. They didn’t even have old
fashioned solar powered radios.

Emma picked up the small computer, only
twice the size of her hand, and tucked it beneath her shirt behind
her waistband. Moe wouldn’t like her snooping in Vin’s
things.

Guilt chased her down the stairs, but
she reasoned with her conscience. She only wanted to help Vin deal
with the ghosts haunting his beautiful eyes.

* * * *

Vin drifted in a dark void where he
only existed as memories and emotions. Reliving his childhood
memories now that he’d actually seen glimpses of what a normal
childhood should be illuminated the horrors of his early years. The
physical regimen alone fit the description of child abuse and
torture. He and his brothers hadn’t know better, hadn’t known life
could be different, and there’d been no one to speak for them. For
the first years after they’d started fighting combat missions, they
hadn’t noticed how differently civilians lived. Their handlers had
kept them isolated.

They’d served their first mission at
age sixteen, a battle with pirates on a distant world. Joe, the
leader of the Recon Marines, had first voiced the doubts hidden
inside their empty hearts. Together Joe and Vin had worked to keep
their brothers alive as their assignments grew more and more
deadly, more impossible. The people who had created them hadn’t
taken into consideration the intelligence they’d bred into their
living weapons.

Vin’s drugged thoughts skipped to his
time on Crevan Four and Yalo, the warrior woman who’d taught him to
love. And how losing that love emptied a man of everything.
Everything except a burning need for revenge.

* * * *

Emma talked Moe into taking a break as
evening settled on Hovel Port. Vin hadn’t moved and his vitals
remained worrisome. His blood pressure stayed below healthy levels
even taking into consideration his excellent physical condition.
Though his temperature didn’t rise, she added the Fusomycle to his
IV anyway. She hung another bag of artificial blood and checked
Vin’s bandages.

Satisfied she could do nothing more
than remain at Vin’s side, Emma settled back on the stool. She took
out the computer and had to lift Vin’s limp hand and use his palm
to unlock the screen. It lit up, tuning automatically onto the
intergalactic info waves. But the little machine continued linking,
opening icons to every database she’d ever heard of. Military,
news, law enforcement, navigation, science and anything that could
be searched for on the waves.

One touch of her finger took her into
the best known news feed. Fighting to scrape out a living on Merris
Five minimized the concerns of the greater world. She touched a few
more spots in the news feed, narrowing her search to information on
the Recon Marines. The screen filled with layer upon layer of
recent news.

It took her an hour to compile a clear
story of Vin’s last few months. A military judge court-martialed
the Recon Marines but the soldiers had escaped into the unknown.
They’d turned up months later in the service of Queen Callie Adell
of Giroux. As a physician, Emma knew of the queen and the famous
elixir her line produced to offset space sickness. The queen had
bullied the Galactic Ministry into pardoning the Recon Marines.
Four Recon Marines now lived as free men on Giroux. The news feed
claimed all the other Recon Marines were dead including two who had
died in the rescue of the queen. Yalo Pangol, the queen’s body
guard, had also died on some outer world planet called Crevan
Four.

Next Emma dove into military records
and found Vin listed as killed on Crevan Four. Between the military
information and that on the news feed, Emma read the story of the
scandal uncovered during Queen Callie’s defense of the marines. A
deep ugly well of corruption led from Geoff Hadrason to numerous
army officials. The scandal had sent Hadrason to prison after he
attempted to kidnap the queen again.

Skimming over more recent news
connected to Hadrason’s saga, Emma discovered that four more mining
officials and two army officers under suspicion for being on the
mine owner’s payroll had disappeared or turned up mysteriously on
the doorstep of law enforcement. Only one military officer, one
known to deal with Hadrason but also involved in the creation of
the Recon Marines and responsible for the court martial, remained
unaccounted for. Civilian and military law enforcement searched for
Admiral Ben Lester. After the other men involved in the wide spread
criminal ring started to drop from sight, Ben Lester went into
hiding. Some of the news services speculated that Lester had his
partners killed to wipe away witnesses to his
involvement.

Only one law enforcement report
mentioned Admiral Ben Lester’s stepdaughter. The officer writing
the report suggested finding the stepdaughter might provide a fresh
lead to the admiral but no one knew where to find her.

Emma set the device aside. Someone had
found the stepdaughter. A supposedly dead Recon Marine had tracked
Ben Lester’s stepdaughter to the home she’d made for herself far
from the poisons and betrayals of her former life. She’d thought to
help Vin heal from his previous life but realized he hadn’t left it
behind at all. He was a Recon Marine on the hunt and had positioned
himself beside the one person who might lead him to the last man on
his hit list. Despite all his social ineptness, Vin had cleverly
done what no one else could do.

Vin stirred but didn’t wake. Did he
feel guilt at using her to complete his revenge?

She couldn’t believe he’d covered Billy
with his body as a way to ingratiate himself with the town. He’d
had no reason to help save Russ or protect the village from
dangerous wildlife. Stopping the robbers and seeing the village
received its needed supplies didn’t fit into a plot of
vengeance.

Perhaps she was naïve, but she believed
Vin couldn’t help himself when it came to protecting the innocent.
It was bred into his psyche as well as his bones. And her
stepfather was far from an innocent. Vin likely thought of Emma as
bait, not knowing she was hiding from Ben Lester. He must expect
her stepfather to show up on Merris Five at some point or for her
to leave and join the admiral. Only a few other people knew the
truth of Emma’s relationship with her stepfather. But with Vin at
her side, might it not be time to enjoin the final confrontation
with Ben Lester? Instead of Vin using her, she would use
him.

After checking Vin’s vitals again and
finding them unchanged, Emma used his hand to open the computer
again. Her stepfather had never learned to live frugally and would
be tapping into the mining company’s earnings. She sent a message
to the company accountant, questioning her investments. Anyone
could trace her location from such a direct contact. How long until
the admiral came for her?