Free Quarantine (The Shadow Wars Book 7.5) by S. A. Lusher

going for several seconds until he was dry-heaving, then pulled out a few of those wipes. After using one to wipe off his mouth, he hawked and spat several times, then closed his visor and washed it off with the rest. When he was finished, he spied his machete, half-in and half-out of the open doorway. He retrieved it, then realized his pipe was missing.
    He spent five minutes looking for it, but never found it. Sighing, gripping his machete, Allan left the room, purposefully not looking at Fletcher, and went in search of the security center. Five miserable minutes later, he stood before the primary console, alone in the dim room. He quickly ran through the procedure, shutting down the lockout node. Once the process was finished, he took a minute to sit down in one of the chairs and pull out his portable medical kit. He was really starting to feel like crap. His whole body ached.
    Lifting his visor, he popped a cocktail of pills into his mouth, a mixture of anti-virals, antibiotics and painkillers, and washed them down with all the water in his canteen. When that was finished, he closed his visor, replaced the medkit and canteen, and activated his radio.
    “This is Gray to Duncan and Colin, what's your situation?” he asked.
    “We're...ah...getting there,” Duncan replied after a moment.
    “Fletcher's dead,” Allan said numbly.
    A pause. “What happened?”
    “The crew got her. How close are you?”
    “Okay, to be honest, we got lost,” Colin chimed in.
    Allan sighed. “Fucking wonderful. Do you have any idea where you currently are?”
    “We're close to the medical wing, I think. Hold on...okay, we're just outside Storage Room 48-B,” Duncan replied.
    Allan sighed. “Get in there. Stay put. I'm coming. Hunter, what about you?” A pause, then nothing. “Hunter? Can you hear me?” Still nothing.
    Allan felt his frustration and fear growing.
    Without another word, he set off.
     
    * * * * *
     
    He found Duncan and Colin exactly where they said they'd be, in a squalid, poorly-lit storage bay, waiting sheepishly for him. Some distant part of Allan's mind noted that it was strange for these two to get lost. They were both Spec Ops veterans...how could they have gotten lost? But he was tired and in pain and his mind kept turning back to those red welts, to the idea of a virus that had been released...had he been exposed?
    “Come on,” he said, leading them out of the storage bay and through the threshold into the medical wing. “There's something we should talk about.”
    “What?” Duncan asked.
    “I don't know if you've noticed, but there's red welts on the affected crew members' bodies. I'm thinking they were experimenting on some kind of virus or something and maybe it got out. The obvious implication here is that we're at risk,” Allan explained.
    “I hadn't noticed...fucking fantastic,” Colin muttered.
    “One more reason to get this job done,” Duncan replied. “How do you think it's transmitted?”
    “I honestly don't know. I can only hope its not airborne or in the water. If it's in the blood maybe, then we should be fine, since we're in our suits,” Allan replied.
    They spent the next several minutes navigating the medical wing. Allan found that his headache was growing worse, and he was extremely thirsty. He regretted draining his canteen and made a note to find more water, preferably some not from the general supply. All the while, he was trying to get hold of Hunter, who remained off the air.
    The medical wing was wrecked more so than the rest of the ship seemed to be. They passed infirmaries that looked like they'd been subjected to brutal firefights, the walls dented and bloodied, tools and equipment scattered across the ground. The three of them found guns among the dead, but they were always ruined or broken somehow. Allan had the idea that perhaps all of the ammunition onboard had been expended, or maybe all the ammo actually within the guns themselves, and the crew had taken to using