Free Parasites by Jason Halstead Page B

shoulders. For her he’d deal with his past if he must. The treatments had worked beyond his wildest hopes. She only needed annual checkups and minor gene sequencing to correct the minor alterations that took place. She would continue to need that the rest of her life, but with it she could lead a normal life free of handicap or prejudice.
    “Sorry, I’m just not—“
    The lighting shifted in the passenger bay to red, distracting and disrupting him. Within seconds the transport shuddered briefly, the inertial suppressors not reacting quick enough to the forces of atmospheric entry. The shuttle smoothed out after a heartbeat. Jeremy swallowed nervously even as he heard Dr. Rice let out a deep breath.
    The next few minutes of the ride were quite in an eerie fashion. Everybody was looking around, both at one another and at no one. They were headed to a new planet where only a handful of other people had been before and, from the orbital scans done, little sign of those people could be found aside from the ruins of a spaceship.
    Jeremy heard someone squawk as the shuttle was shaken again. It was suppressed as quickly as it started, but a new noise penetrated the strained sound of the ventilators. It was a whining noise that was slowly rising in pitch.
    “Emergency Crash Protocol!”
    Jeremy was moving even as his mind digested what he’d heard over the speakers in the passenger cabin. He tested his harness then started to reach overhead. He glanced to his right and saw Wesley Roberts, the assistant to Dr. Hall, staring blankly.
    “Hey!” He snapped at the dazed veterinary technician. “Check your harness and cover your head!”
    Wesley looked at him and nodded, then burst into action as the words filtered through. In seconds was fitting his helmet to his suit and then leaning forward to assume the ages-old crash position. Jeremy was again reaching for his own helmet when the keening noise hit a crescendo and metamorphosed into a sharp roar that made the shuttle tremble.
    A new roaring noise replaced the previous one. Jeremy managed to twist the seals on his helmet in time to prevent depressurization. A hole in the wall on the opposite side of the shuttle showed a turbulent sky outside. A strange thought slipped through his mind even as he processed the smoke and flames visible through the opening, ‘ Better sky than space. ’
    The shuttle jerked again underneath him. It was a brutal strike that slammed him into his seat and forced his upper body to slam into the wall behind him. His head, protected by his helmet only marginally, met the wall with equal force.
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 3
     
    “On your feet Sinclair!”
    Jeremy opened his eyes long enough to squeeze them shut against the harsh light that speared into his brain. He made a gagging noise and waved his arm weakly, trying to push away whoever was trying to torture him.
    “Wake up, sailor!”
    Her jerked, the words reaching into a deep part of his brain that reacted in spite of years of neglect. Squinting heavily he stared down at himself and saw he was wearing his environmental suit. In spots it was stained, some of it green, some brown, and some a reddish brown that looked less like dirt and more like—“
    “Stand up, damn it Sinclair!”
    He looked up and saw Lance Corporal Kate standing over him. She had a standard issue plasma rifle in hand. Her Marine combat uniform, part armor and part environmental suit, was scratched and stained much like his, except she had more of the reddish tinted stains on hers. The other thing he noted through his squinted vision was that the visor on her helmet was up, exposing her face to the atmosphere of the planet. He could understand why, the visor had cracks running along it.
    “What happened?” Jeremy croaked as he tested his body and climbed, slowly, to his feet.
    “I lost one of my men and I’m pressing you into service until things are resolved,” Kate snapped. She pushed the rifle in his hands. “You know