The dragon’s corpse took up most of the central lab now. It was surrounded by equipment taking blood and other bodily fluids, along with a few dissections. A few drones hovered in the air, occasionally entering the dragon to see inside. The Captain was the only person in the room not dressed in a heavy biohazard suit, staying well clear of the doctors as they chatted and read holoscreens. He had very little interest in them.
Wakefield greeted him cheerfully as he stormed up the stairs, but was completely ignored. The Captain slammed his fist against McCray’s office door, who let him in after a short delay. He strode towards the Professor’s desk and slammed a piece of paper down onto it.
“What is this?!” He shouted.
McCray picked up the paper and read it intently for a moment. “Orders to withdraw your men from Delta Complex so Nemesis’ own personal troops can take your place. Due to contracts signed by the Company and the Federation, you will still remain on Berethian as security and your pay will not decrease. I assumed you could read, Captain. That would explain a lot, though.”
“You promised me,” the Captain growled.
“I promised you nothing. I only let you stay because you wanted to. You proved yourself incompetent of your own accord.”
“How? We killed the damn thing!”
“Against your judgement, Captain. If you had gunned down the thing to start with you wouldn’t have lost so many men.”
“There was no way we could have known-“
“Known that a dragon might have been hostile?” McCray snapped. “Oh please, spare me the sympathy, it’ll kill me too. On top of that, your decision to kill it with an anti-armour laser from a gunship severely damaged its internal organs, in particular anything it used to produce its flame breath. You cost me a lot of valuable research because of that.”
“Damn you and your research!” The Captain shouted. “I was trying to save my men! That pilot is the only reason we’re alive!”
“Also, the fact your decorum is terrible factored pretty heavily into your dismissal. Now, we must continue our work for the good of humanity.”
“For the good of…” The Captain’s voice trailed off for a moment. “How is dissecting the dragon for the good of humanity? The cog I get, but the only purpose of dissecting the dragon would be…”
“To either copy it or understand better how to kill it,” McCray finished the Captain’s sentence. “We will need to fight more of them if we wish to push deeper into the Clocktower.”
“Just that?” The Captain asked. “Really?”
McCray smirked. “Really.”
The Captain looked away, muttering to himself. “I’ve been a fool…”
“That may be,” McCray interrupted, “but you’ve been of great use to us. Your last mission as part of this initiative is to retrieve the body cam footage of your garrison and hand it back over to us. Security purposes, I’m sure you understand. Thank you for your service.”
/////
The Captain walked down the massive tunnel that connected the towns of Jamesons and Pike to each other, and unknowingly to Delta Complex. Usually he’d wave down one of the big buses that traveled between the tunnels, shuttling workers to the town that needed more manpower at the time. They weren’t particularly fond of Federation soldiers, but the Captain had made an active effort to form links to the community and got on with some of them quite well. Now though, he needed time alone to think.
Thoughts spiraled in his head. He wasn’t used to having no control of his emotions, but now all he could feel was hate and helplessness. He was used to hate, he couldn’t be a soldier without it, but he hadn’t felt this helpless in a very long time. Ever since becoming head of his squad he’d been the one in control. The position had given him a kind of clarity and focus that had made him a better soldier, and a better man. He’d lost people before in skirmishes with rebels, but never as many as he lost today. Certainly, he’d never lost people to a monster like that.
He looked up to the ceiling to see another security camera. They were everywhere in the tunnel, in Pike and in Jamesons, and they were all very new cameras.
“The bastard is still watching,” he growled.
It was an extremely long walk to Pike, and it was already the afternoon as he descended the foothills into the small town. Most people were down in the mountains at this time. The few that weren’t either nodded and averted their eyes or saluted mockingly. Even if they hadn’t known what had happened in the Clocktower, they knew the soldiers were sadder and there were less of them. Some were sad about it, some were happy, and some were happy but wouldn’t admit it to his face.
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The garrison was a dark, octagonal building that fit in with the brick and wood buildings around it about as well as the Captain fitted in with a bunch of scientists. He scanned a keycard and walked in, walking around the dark hallways, empty hallways until he eventually found his unit alone in the mess hall. Armour littered the floor, and a crate of beer sat on the table between them. A few of them saluted as he entered, including Private North. The rest just looked at him, either from sadness, defiance or drunkenness.
“At ease, soldiers,” he muttered before speaking up. “You’re not supposed to have alcohol on duty.”
“No, we’re not,” Private Green spoke up. “But we’re not on duty, are we?”
“Where did you get it from?”
“Some brewing family in town heard about the deaths,” Mick explained. “Gave us this out of pity. I’ve had worse stuff.”
The Captain sighed, immediately realising how was the worst time to say what he needed to.
“We’re being taken off the Clocktower operation. Everyone is to hand in their bodycam footage for security purposes. We’ll remain on Berethian for the time being. That’s an order.”
The response was a bunch of muted groans and nods. The Captain was taken aback by this. “I thought you’d be angry.”
“Why would we be?” Private North asked solemnly. “We lost half our unit to the Clocktower. McCray is crazy. I’d rather not get involved with either of them.”
“Right. That makes sense.”
“Are you angry, Captain?” Mick asked.
“Yes,” the Captain admittedly bluntly. “I…failed you all. I trusted in the wrong people, and we paid the price for it.”
“Damn right,” Private Green said. “But what are any of us gonna do about it? They’re dead now.”
The Captain walked over to the table slowly and took a seat. “I’m…worried about things getting worse. I don’t trust Nemesis is going to do the right thing with what they find in the Clocktower. That’s why the Federation sent troops here, to police them.”
“Fat lot of good that did.”
“Well, someone needs to be watching over them and stopping them going too far with what they find.”
“And what do we do if they do?” Green snarled. “Raid the Complex? Shoot them all as they drop another dragon on us? What is one unit going to do in all that? It was a dumb idea to begin with. I only agreed to it because I trust you far, far more than I trust anyone above you. Now…I don’t know if that’s true.”
The Captain paused. “Did…did I make the wrong choice not killing the dragon to begin with?”
Green looked him in the eyes. “From my point of view, Captain? Yes. Yes you did.”
The rest of the soldiers gave slow nods of agreement.
“I’m sorry,” Mick muttered.
The Captain nodded. “Hand in your body cam footage by the end of the hour. I’ll deliver it to Wakefield before the end of the day.”
He took a can of beer out of the crate and left the room.
/////
The Captain walked into one of the offices in the facility. This one was a mess compared to McCray’s, a mess of various hard drives and outdated scientific tech. Wakefield was behind the desk, trying to find a place to put down his laptop amidst the carnage he had created. He took a moment to look up and see the Captain enter the room.
“Oh, I didn’t see you enter,” he admitted.
“Or hear me, seemingly.” The Captain held up a data drive. “Body cam footage from all of my soldiers. I’ll delete any copies upon my return to the garrison. Wouldn’t want any of the files on there being corrupted and lost.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Wakefield said as he swiped the drive away. “I’ll save it and begin analysis soon.” He held up the drive, examining it absentmindedly. “I’m…sorry for your losses.”
“Don’t be. You weren’t there. This is McCray’s fault for sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong. And…it’s might fault for trying to reason with a beast.”
“I suppose it’s the cost for scientific advancement. Some people might…” Wakefield trailed off, refusing to finish the sentence. “No. Something…something’s wrong here. This isn’t like the McCray I knew.”
“What was he like before?” The Captain asked.
“He was just as focused and determined, but he was never as…coercing. We used to like his eccentricities, but something’s just been off recently. He wouldn’t send you back to the Clocktower so soon, and he wouldn’t manipulate you in the way he did.”
The Captain was surprised. “You were listening in on that?”
Wakefield smiled meekly, not looking at the Captain. “I have my ways.”
The Captain paused, realising he finally had an ally here. Even if he couldn’t mediate between Nemesis and the Clocktower in an official capacity, he could still help control this mess before it got out of hand. Before it caused something they couldn’t even imagine.
“Can you get me to the Clocktower?” He asked Wakefield.
Wakefield paused, deep in thought and caught off guard by the proposition. His face went from fear to curiosity to resilience in a matter of seconds. “Is your body cam off?”
The Captain nodded. Wakefield looked up at the security camera in the corner of his office. He walked underneath it, pulled a metal device out of his pocket, and suddenly it blacked out.
