Marathon: The Complete Series (Books 1-9) (Complete Series Box Sets), page 106
part #1 of Marathon Series
A million puzzle pieces snapped into place. He didn’t belong on Earth. He would never belong there. He had no desire to live among Earthlings, and now he didn’t have to.
He’d always feared that, by driving the Regiment out of the fringes, he himself would have to retreat to Earth, too. He could finally put that fear to rest forever.
He wasn’t the only Earthling on the fringes because he wasn’t an Earthling. He never had been. He wouldn’t be the only Earthling on the fringes after this war ended.
That weight lifted off his shoulders. He could finally breathe again. He knew the truth and it changed everything, but at the same time, it didn’t change anything.
He was still the leader in charge of the alien rebellion. He was the one responsible for destroying the Regiment.
His vision cleared. He stood before the one man responsible for this whole disaster. This man standing in front of him…this man was the one who’d started it all. He was the one who’d been experimenting with a way to destroy the fringes…and he’d started it all with Eckhart.
Eckhart’s anger didn’t come back to life. It vanished entirely. He felt nothing—absolutely nothing for this man and the lab and the Regiment and the Stormbreaker and the visions and Earth.
He only cared about one thing—getting back to his people. He cared for nothing but making sure the fringes continued after this without having to worry about the Regiment ever again.
“Well?” Mitchell asked. “What do you think? Things are going to be great now that you’re back. Just imagine what we can accomplish. We’ve been working with one hand tied behind our back for years because we didn’t have pure strains. All of that’s going to change now. I can’t tell you how excited we all are.”
“Hold it,” Eckhart interrupted. “You want me to actually participate in these experiments?”
“You don’t have to participate. We’ll take samples from you and replicate them. You can just kick back and relax. We’ll insert the DNA samples in other test subjects. They’re the ones who will participate.”
“You inserted DNA samples from me into…” Eckhart reeled again when the truth hit him.
“We had to,” Mitchell insisted. “We used retroviruses to splice your samples into the subjects’ DNA. It was the only way to prep their genes to accept more alien expression packages. Of course, we had to change a few things when we started working on Nuñez, Jenks, and D’Alia. We couldn’t have a whole army of Eckharts running around the galaxy, could we?”
He laughed again. He kept examining Eckhart, waiting for him to show some delight or even approval.
“So you sent those ‘transmissions’ to bring me here, and then you…” Eckhart glanced behind him toward the door. “You sent the assets to attack my friends.”
“We had to. We needed you to come alone, but then you blew up the training hall and got yourself injured. I had to let Ingai sense where you were so he could heal you.”
Eckhart ran his hand across his eyes. Now he knew. He didn’t have to ask any more questions. “What are you going to do with Dallas?”
“We’ll strip him down and fragment his operating system. We’ll figure out how to reprogram the assets with his operating system so we can duplicate his speed and accuracy.”
Eckhart made a snap decision. “It’d be real nice if I had a friend around to talk to while I’m providing you with DNA samples, kicking back and relaxing. I might get lonely and go looking for a friend elsewhere.”
The admiral jumped. “Oh. Of course. Are you saying...?”
“Could you turn him back on? I’d really like to talk to him.”
“Oh. Okay.” The admiral went over to his computer, pressed his palm to the screen to turn it on, and started tapping on it. Eckhart’s chest tightened as he counted down the seconds.
Tension stretched his nerves to the breaking point. This asshole had ruined his life. This cocksucker was the reason Eckhart had grown up an orphan on the streets of a destitute planet crawling with criminal aliens. This man would rather have killed Eckhart than let him grow up at all, but that wasn’t the worst.
This man was the one speed bump standing between Eckhart and the rest of his life. He’d gotten that realization before he left the Atera. The rest of his life waited for him out there on the fringes. He just had to remove this one last headache from his path.
The admiral’s expression cleared again, and he glanced over at Dallas. “There. That should do it.”
Dallas’ head shot up and he tilted his helmet from right to left. “Re-initializing…”
Eckhart burst out laughing in relief. “Hey, man. How are you feeling?”
“Eckhart.” Dallas turned his helmet the other way. “Where are we? We appear to be on a Regiment Stormbreaker…” He trained his optical lens on the admiral. “Rear Admiral Enoch Mitchell.”
Mitchell turned to face him. “I can’t tell you what an honor it is to meet you, Dallas. I know we’re going to do great work togeth—”
Eckhart reacted in a flash. He seized a large beaker from the work table and brought it down with all his might on the admiral’s head.
7
Rear Admiral Enoch Mitchell folded at the knees, crashed onto the floor, and flopped forward without putting out his arms to break his fall.
Eckhart attacked in a frenzy. He didn’t have any other weapon, so he snatched the broken neck of the beaker he’d just broken over the guy’s head. He slammed down in a straddle on the admiral’s back and raised the razor-sharp shard to finish the bastard off.
As soon as Eckhart got into that position, the admiral rallied and started to struggle. He flapped his arms to free himself and flailed in a puddle of whatever mysterious clear fluid he had been experimenting with.
Eckhart jammed his left hand down on the back of the admiral’s neck to hold Mitchell in position. He raised the shard for another strike, but the admiral turned out to be stronger than he looked.
He jerked sideways and almost unseated Eckhart. Eckhart lunged with his makeshift blade, and the point chipped on the tile floor next to the admiral’s head.
The admiral turned all the way over, despite Eckhart’s best efforts to hold him down. Eckhart struck again, but the admiral caught his hand, and they both wrestled over the shard.
Dallas watched impassively from directly above Eckhart’s head. “Do you need any help, Eckhart?”
A brutal smash cut Eckhart off from answering. Plasma jetted into the lab and destroyed three distillation apparatuses in one shot.
Glass exploded in Dallas’ face and rained on the floor around Mitchell and Eckhart.
Eckhart tried to look behind him to see who was shooting. Four assets hovered beyond the lab entrance.
“Shoot, Dallas!” Eckhart roared.
“Who should I shoot, Eckhart?” Dallas asked.
“The assets, of course! Fight them off! Kill them if you can.”
“Oh.” Dallas looked up at the assets like he’d just noticed them. “Okay. If you say so.”
He rocketed away in a blinding streak, but as soon as he got near the door, he hit what looked like an invisible barrier. Dallas slammed into it and collapsed on the floor, as inert as before.
Eckhart had enough to deal with fighting the admiral, and couldn’t go check on Dallas. Mitchell grimaced up at Eckhart, let go of Eckhart’s wrist, and slammed his other palm into Eckhart’s sternum.
A colossal energy burst exploded into Eckhart’s chest and hurled him back against another workstation. Mitchell swooped across the lab without touching the floor. Eckhart had half a second to realize the truth. Mitchell could move, fight, and react just like the assets, and he attacked Eckhart in a blinding fury.
Mitchell slashed his hands through the air, and invisible energy sliced every part of Eckhart’s body. Every strike felt worse than Landau’s magical stab. Lightning-fast swipes cut Eckhart to ribbons. They chopped down into his neck and shoulders, plunged into his chest and stomach, and hacked his arms and legs.
Punishing blows pounded Eckhart’s head and face. He couldn’t rise off the workstation. He felt himself falling under the assault, and his brain started to fade out.
More plasma blasted into the lab from outside. Some distant part of him wondered why the assets were attacking and destroying the lab that created them. The Regiment must want to keep this lab going.
Mitchell delivered a brutal smash to the side of Eckhart’s head. He whipped sideways and crashed down on his hands and knees as more of Mitchell’s energy weapons tore him to shreds.
He summoned the last of his energy to haul up his spinning head. He was facing the door, but he couldn’t reach it.
Dallas sprawled in front of Eckhart’s face. He wouldn’t be able to help Eckhart get out of this. No one would.
A gut-wrenching spike of pain stabbed down into Eckhart’s brain through the back of his skull. It obliterated all thought for a second. He became aware of Mitchell standing over him, and the horrible truth struck home.
Mitchell wouldn’t kill him. Eckhart was too valuable. If Eckhart didn’t give up his DNA samples willingly, Mitchell would find some other way to take them by force.
Maybe he’d hold Eckhart in one of those tanks. Maybe he’d give Eckhart some drug to paralyze him while Mitchell held him in suspended animation.
A sick feeling came over Eckhart when he remembered finding Ingai in the suspension tank on Gruna. Eckhart thought at the time that the vision might be leading him to Gruna to see this alien in trouble.
Now he understood everything. The vision was real. Eckhart was the alien in the suspension tank—or he would be, if he didn’t defeat Mitchell.
Not even that broke Mitchell’s power over him. The terrible pain of all Mitchell’s weapons destroying Eckhart’s body pinned him down so he couldn’t move.
Another smash rocked the Stormbreaker outside the lab. Some giant weight collided with the door, and the impact shattered the walls. A blur of movement outside caught Eckhart’s eye, and he froze.
The assets were still out there spitting lasers and plasma and bombs in all directions, but they weren’t shooting into the lab the way Eckhart had first thought.
One of the assets dodged sideways, and a primed Halfanite block somersaulted into the lab. It bounced off Dallas’ armored back and rolled onto the floor by the admiral’s workstation.
In that fraction of an instant when the asset moved out of the way, Eckhart caught sight of Bing, DeWalt, and Namol all firing on the assets on the terrace outside.
Eckhart’s brain switched back on. His friends were back. They were all outside fighting to get into the lab. They were trying to reach him.
The Halfanite block tumbled against the workstation. Mitchell was too busy hammering Eckhart to notice it.
Eckhart flung himself sideways. He’d barely rolled behind another workstation before the Halfanite detonated in an almighty boom. He covered his head, but as soon as the Halfanite went off, he realized his mistake.
The blast didn’t touch Mitchell. He remained standing through it all and stalked over to Eckhart. He seized Eckhart by the collar and yanked him to his feet. Mitchell slammed Eckhart down on the workstation and started pounding again.
The first crushing blow knocked Eckhart flat. Both his arms splayed out to the sides. He reeled under the barrage—and then his hand touched something sharp.
He grappled for the shard of broken beaker he’d dropped a moment before—or it might have been a different one. He didn’t think twice. He grabbed it and stabbed it down with all his might at Mitchell’s head.
The shard hit that invisible force surrounding the admiral. Mitchell stood still and let Eckhart strike again and again, but nothing penetrated that field. The shard chipped and lost its edge, but Eckhart couldn’t get it any nearer to Mitchell’s face.
Mitchell only smirked at Eckhart from inside his protective shield. That smirk drove Eckhart wild. He had to kill this bastard if it was the last thing he ever did.
The simple fact that Mitchell had deactivated Dallas set Eckhart’s rage loose the way it had on Gruna when Eckhart fought Phrolain. Defending himself didn’t send Eckhart into that black place, but protecting his friend sure did.
Eckhart glanced around the lab for any weapon he could use. He didn’t see anything, but he couldn’t stand by and do nothing.
He charged Mitchell and tackled him around the middle. Eckhart hurled his weight against Mitchell to wrestle the admiral to the ground, but Mitchell didn’t budge. His feet rooted to the floor by some unbreakable force while Eckhart wrenched and jerked and tugged to unseat him.
Mitchell started laughing at the comical pathetic futility of Eckhart’s efforts. That on its own fueled Eckhart’s blood rage more than anything. He had to pay this son of a bitch back for all the hateful things he had done.
More explosions boomed outside the lab. Gunshots destroyed the walls, and some of the plaster dislodged. Mitchell pretended not to notice until one of the assets crashed into a section of the already damaged door frame.
A thread of Destrine laced into the lab. That got Mitchell’s attention, and he turned to look.
Eckhart reacted in a flash. He dodged around the workstation and dove on top of Dallas.
Eckhart went to work fast. He still wasn’t sure what he would do or even what he could do, but Dallas was the only weapon powerful enough to defeat the admiral. He had to try. He attacked Dallas’ arm prosthetic, clawing at the slots on Dallas’ wrists where his assault guns lay hidden when he wasn’t using them.
Mitchell strolled over, taking his sweet time. He stood over Eckhart watching Eckhart’s frantic efforts. “Give it up, Eckhart. You’re never going to leave this ship. As soon as we take your samples, we can make sure none of the aliens come back to bother us. We can all go on living in peace the way we—”
The slot snapped under Eckhart’s fingers. His heart ached from pounding so hard against his ribs. He actually stopped breathing when the slot cover popped back to reveal the gun tucked inside.
Eckhart hurled himself down flat on the floor, depressed the lever to eject the weapon, and jammed his finger on the firing mechanism.
The gun discharged under Eckhart’s arm and a sizzle of Datrium hit the admiral in the chest. He must have forgotten to use his magical protection, because he staggered under the blast.
He struck the workstation where he’d just pinned Eckhart, but he bounced up right away. His eyes fixed on Eckhart in a knowing glare that Eckhart understood only too well. This guy wasn’t going down easily.
Eckhart didn’t wait around to find out what the admiral would do. He rocketed to his feet, charged the admiral, and caught the man by the hair before the admiral could put up his protective shield again.
He shoved Mitchell hard and made him stumble again, but Eckhart didn’t let go of him. He rode Mitchell down to the ground and hauled Mitchell’s head over to Dallas’ assault gun.
Eckhart’s fury snapped out of all control. He tore out the Datrium feed to Dallas’ gun, and a dribble of plasma spilled from the broken tubing. He stuffed the tube into Mitchell’s mouth.
Mitchell let loose one of his experimental weapons to hit Eckhart, and the Datrium exploded right in Mitchell’s face. Eckhart had to shut his eyes and turn his face away as the spin-chilling thump erupted into Mitchell’s head, but it didn’t go off once and die. It kept rumbling on and on the longer Eckhart held the tube in place.
Eckhart crammed it in with sadistic force. Mitchell’s body spasmed and twitched with convulsions, but Eckhart didn’t release him. Dallas’ new operating system would keep producing Datrium without end.
Eckhart could stand here torturing Mitchell all day long, but at that moment, another concussion smashed the lab from the outside. This one didn’t disturb the lab itself, but the noise brought Eckhart back from his madness—at least a little bit.
He yanked the tube out and Mitchell flopped on the floor at Eckhart’s feet, but Eckhart saw at a glance that the attack hadn’t harmed Mitchell. He was still perfectly intact. He was just unconscious.
Eckhart dropped on his knees and screwed the tube back into Dallas’ assault gun. He and his friends were going to need that gun soon if they didn’t already, but they needed Dallas even more.
He fought to get his lungs and heart working again while he dragged Mitchell over to the computer. Then he nearly cracked his spine pulling Dallas over there. Eckhart laid his friend out on the floor next to Mitchell and rolled Dallas onto his back. He had no idea what he was going to do here. He knew nothing about Dallas’ inner workings, and even less about the Regiment’s computer system.
Eckhart panted and wiped sweat off his brow while he tried to reattach the wires Mitchell had been using on Dallas, but he could only guess. He muscled Mitchell’s body off the floor and slapped Mitchell’s hand to the screen. The machine switched on, and Eckhart let Mitchell fall again.
Eckhart scrambled to figure out how the hell this computer worked. Everything he did to it only pulled up more and more DNA sequences. Most of them looked similar to each other—all except for Eckhart’s.
He passed and repassed his own sequence while he fumbled around with all the other pages on the system. The longer he messed with this, the more he realized just how different his DNA sequence was from the others. He really was an alien. The Regiment had just concealed the fact by a clever combination of sequences embedded in a sea of Earthling DNA.
Nothing was working, and Eckhart couldn’t mess with this anymore. He turned toward the door, only to shield his eyes from another splintering fountain of plaster and debris pinwheeling into the lab.
He grabbed Mitchell, and when Eckhart picked him up, Mitchell snapped awake. He started to struggle, but Eckhart was all finished playing games.
He yanked Mitchell around to face away from him, pulled the man in tight, and marched him toward the door.
Mitchell fought harder as they got near the fight. “Hey! What are you…?”
Eckhart tightened his grip. “You better be ready to defend yourself, Admiral. I don’t think your boys care too much if they hit you while they’re trying to subdue me.”
