Read Online A Symphony of Echoes by Jodi Taylor - Free Book Online Page B

nurse didn’t even stir. I crossed to the Chief and touched his face. Cool, but he was alive.
    Putting my gun to the nurse’s head, I said softly, ‘Wake up.’
    She opened her eyes, gasped in shock, swallowed, got herself together and whispered, ‘Go away. It’s a trap.’
    I stepped back, considering.
    ‘So, Chief Farrell is in Sick Bay with just one nurse to guard him. What’s to stop me waking him and taking him away now?’
    ‘He’s not asleep. He’s in a coma. If you move him, you could kill him. Get away while you can.’
    I shook my head. I had to get as much information as possible.
    ‘What’s going on? Where is everyone?’
    She wasn’t listening. ‘Are you Maxwell?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Then you must go. You’re the one they’re waiting for.’
    ‘Me? Why?’
    ‘Where are the others? You didn’t come alone, did you? Where’s the rest of your team?’
    I took a deep breath. I had no idea how much time I had. I wasn’t at all happy with what I’d heard so far, and I guessed I wasn’t going to like what I was about to hear either.
    ‘Stop,’ I said. ‘Just calm down and help me with some info. Where is everyone?’
    ‘Locked up downstairs in the basement. I’m allowed out to monitor him.’ She nodded to the bed. ‘He kept causing trouble, so they did this to him to keep him quiet. But they won’t let me nurse him properly, and I don’t really know what to do, and I’m afraid he’s going to die, and it will be my fault.’
    She was very young. In another time, she would be pretty, with dark eyes and curls, but her eyes were tired, and she was terrified, not least of me. I lowered the gun. ‘What’s your name?’
    ‘Katie. Katie Carr.’
    Oh, Katie. She really was new to this. You never tell people your surname. You don’t want to meet your descendants. And you definitely don’t want your descendants to meet you.
    ‘You’ve got to help us.’ She started to shake and her voice rose. ‘They’re shooting people. They want our pods. You must help us.’
    She’d changed her tune now. She’d forgotten she wanted me to leave. Throwing aside the blanket, she moved to the bed, checking her patient. I found it easier to think of him as ‘the patient’. The sight of him, lying on the bed, unconscious, dirty, and vulnerable was not easy. I moved to the door to watch the corridor.
    ‘OK, Katie, start at the beginning. Who are ‘they’? When did they arrive? What do they want?’
    ‘They attacked about two weeks ago, in the night. Chief –’ I made a warning gesture. ‘Our Chief Tec and her crew got the pods away. Somehow. I don’t know where they went. Only a few people know the location of the remote site. Every day they drag someone out and beat them up. Or worse. To make us tell them. But no one knows, so we can’t. They shot our Chief Officers. Except for our Chief Tec and they’re only keeping her alive because they think she’ll tell them and she won’t. No one knows what happened to our Director. You have to help us’
    ‘Why do they want me?’
    ‘I don’t think they did, at the beginning. But no one would tell them. Then she said to get Chief Farrell because he’d know the remote site, and if they got him then you’d turn up sooner or later, and they could use you to get to him.’
    Bloody hell! I was right! Me coming alone was part of their plan.
    ‘Katie, how many are there? Do you know?’
    ‘There seemed a lot at first, but actually, I don’t think there’s that many. Not more than ten or twelve, I think.’
    ‘So, to sum up. A hostile force occupies St Mary’s; its personnel are imprisoned in the basement; its pods sent away. Chief Farrell is in a coma in Sick Bay and they’re all waiting for me to turn up so they can use me to pressure him to get the pods back.’
    She nodded.
    ‘Well, I’d better not keep them waiting then.’ I gestured to the bed. ‘Can you wake him?’
    ‘No, I don’t know how to do it.’
    ‘Where’s the doctor?’
    ‘In