The Marine's Queen by Susan Kelley Page B

Webb finished with him, Kam stood vigil by the door. He accepted water from Riba but all his attention was directed to his duty.
    The night had reached its darkest before they heard voices outside. Kam opened the door only enough to slip out and then closed it behind him.
    “ Aren’t they freezing out there?” Callie asked.
    Webb picked Kam’s torn shirt off the bench and held it out to her. “Why don’t you take this out to Kam? Joe won’t give you hell like he would me.”
    Callie read the challenge in the doctor’s gaze. She snatched the shirt from him and marched out the door. The cold air took her breath.
    “ Get back inside,” Joe ordered. The marines stood in a circle near the boarks’ pen. The cold moonlight shined on a small bundle at their feet.
    “ I brought Kam his shirt.” Callie stepped closer. She could see their faces were dirty, a bit bloody and even grimmer than usual.
    “ Thank you.” Kam took the tattered shirt.
    “ Go back inside, Callie,” Joe said again. “Please.”
    “ Where’s Tar.” Something about the still night made her whisper.
    Joe gestured at the bundle near his feet. A pile of rubble lay on a dirty camouflage scrap. Callie took one step closer. A long bone and bits of white tendons stood out against bloody strips of flesh. Tar!

Chapter Seven
     
    “ They’re burning his remains?” Callie shaded her eyes against the rising sun. Her stomach still quivered and rumbled. Why hadn’t she listened to Joe when he first told her to go inside?
    “ They’ve always cremated their dead since I’ve known them. Kam mentioned something once about being used as laboratory specimens if they took the bodies back with them,” Webb explained. “Are you feeling better, Callie?”
    “ I’ve never seen anything so horrible.” Callie swallowed bile rising in her throat again. She had emptied her stomach until there was nothing left but a bitter mouthful of clear fluid.
    Webb put a comforting hand on her shoulder as they stood together and watched the men surrounding the flames a hundred yards away.
    “ How do they get used to it?” Callie wondered.
    “ They don’t get used to it. They were forced to hide their emotions as children. Any boy that cried was culled. They learned fast.”
    “ Culled?” Cold flowed over Callie’s skin as if someone had dumped ice water on her head.
    Webb nodded. “The reports I read said six of their group were lost that way. Others were culled later.”
    “ Later?” Callie could barely form a thought over the horror of it.
    “ They did away with two boys who apparently grew to care too much for each other during their teen years. Another boy hesitated to kill and one didn’t take orders so well. I think the last one didn’t deal well with space travel.” Webb’s matter of fact rendition of the murders made it more horrifying.
    “ How many were there originally?”
    “ Fifty super babies, all created in the same lab. None of them exactly the same, although certain physical parameters were designed for each one. They strove for the most efficient body build and height.”
    Callie studied the marines, nothing how only Kam varied widely in their physical structure.
    Webb’s tone became pure mockery. “They hired women to carry them and kept the pregnant ladies in strict conditions. Their diets and exercise routines followed exact specifications. Three of the newly born infants were considered inferior. They were destroyed the first week.”
    “ Who made these inhumane decisions?”
    “ The same monsters that created our boys. Perhaps these early casualties were the lucky ones.”
    “ How can you say that?”
    “ If you had seen the data on how they trained those young boys, you would agree. I’m constantly amazed at how normal they can be at times.”
    Before Callie could probe for details about the training, the marines started back toward them.
    The men were still dirty and bloody from the previous night. Nothing could be read from